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  • image SM 62/3/2

Reference number

SM 62/3/2

Purpose

Survey of the seating arrangements in Westminster Abbey for the coronation of George III

Aspect

Plan of Westminster Abbey Church / shewing the arrangement of Seats &c / for the Coronation of (pencl) q[uer]y Geo 3? and section through chancel and transepts

Scale

bar scale of 2/3 inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

as above

Medium and dimensions

Pen on laid paper (732 x 515)

Hand

unidentified c18th hand

Watermark

IHS / I Villedary = fleur-de-lis within crowned cartouche / 4 / LVG

Notes

This drawing shows the seating arrangements in Westminster Abbey probably as designed for the coronation of George III. A plan of the seating in the Abbey for the coronation of James II, SM 62/4/8, is similar in presentation - in both drawings a section through the chancel and transepts cuts off Henry VII's Chapel at the east end of the Abbey. However, the differences between the seating arrangements indicate that this drawing is not a direct copy. The bulk of the new seating is fitted up on galleries in the transepts. A raised 'theatre' with extra seating and a dais for the royal throne is set up in the centre of the chancel. More temporary seating is provided in the choir of the Abbey. See also SM 62/3/3.

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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