Soane displayed his group of 15 original Piranesi drawings for Paestum in his Picture Room, but not together. They were hung interspersed with other works: oil paintings, prints and watercolours. A number were positioned high up close to the skylights and exposed to the full effect of sunlight (Soane had blinds fitted to the lantern lights but these were removed at some point after his death). In the late 1980s the then Curator Peter Thornton placed the entire group together behind the north planes in the Picture Room, to protect them from the light. However, when the original 1837 hang was reinstated in the Picture Room in 2011-12 the decision was taken to replace all 15 drawings with facsimiles, in the original frames, in order to preserve the drawings whilst honouring Soane's wishes. This original drawing is now accessible in the Research Library at the Museum whilst the facsimile can be seen in the Picture Room.

Soane purchased the drawings at a sale of the collection of drawings and engravings of the late Charles Lambert, Christie’s, 24 to 26 March 1817, paying £14.5.0. Unusually, there is no copy of this sale catalogue in Soane’s Library, and although his accounts reveal a payment of £14.5.0 to Mr Christie on 26 March 1817 there is no further indication of what this was for. Charles Lambert was born in 1757, the son of Edward Lambert, gentleman, of Hoxton, Shoreditch. He was admitted to the Inner Temple on 10 November 1788, the same year in which he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He died on 14 December 1811. It is evident from the bequests in his will (held at the National Archives), that he was a man of some wealth who had quite a collection of pictures, drawings and engravings. the only lead as far as discovering when and where he might have acquired the Piranesi drawings, is in the narrative in the catalogue of a previous sale at Christies from the same collection (7 March 1812) which talks of many of the pictures being ‘purchased during his tours on the continent, and a few from distinguished collections in this country’. The discovery of this provenance was first published in a footnote in a facsimile of Piranesi’s Taccuini di Modena, edited by Mario Bevilacqua (Artemide Edizione, October 2008). We are most grateful to Professor Robin Middleton for drawing this to our attention and to Dr Eileen Harris for her help in finding out more about Charles Lambert.

Die Gräber von Paestum, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, 13 October 2007 - 20 January 2008; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 27 June - 28 September 2008
Piranesi's Paestum: Master Drawings Uncovered, Sir John Soane's Museum, London, 15 February - 18 May 2013; Tchoban Foundation Museum für Architekturzeichnung, Berlin, 1 June - 31 August 2013; The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 23 January - 17 May 2015; Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, 19 August 2015 - 6 January 2016