Winning entry

The jury's report on Dance's prize-winning entry for the competition for a public art gallery stated that 'The beauty of all its forms, the grandeur and just proportion of the edifice, recal[l] to mind and represent to the eye the magnificient monuments of the ancients .... Every thing in his design appears suited to its place; it would be difficult to take away from the decorations, or to add to them, without impairing the effect; they are numerous without confusion, and suited to the subject' (quoted by Angell, 1847). Sir John Summerson (1963, p.113) wrote of Dance's design as being rigorously Neo-Classical. 'Here, at last, we have the real thing - a non-pyramidal composition, a plan conceived entirely in simple geometrical forms, of antique provenance, and elevations expressed in terms of columns and, where columns were inappropriate, of solid rusticated wall.'

Sources

Dance had no built precedents for his design and Kalman noted that his sources may have included Algarotti's unbuilt scheme for Dresden (1742), with its three basic museum elements of windowed gallery, loggia and top-lit centralised space. Dance's H-plan may have been suggested by Piranesi's description of a fantasy scheme for a sculpture gallery in his first book, Prima parte di architettura e prospettive (published in 1743). The Roman Baths including the Baths of Caracalla were an important and more concrete source for Dance offering, for example, single axial symmetry, peristyle courts, sequences of rooms with varying plan shapes, coffered ceilings and top-lighting. The absence of a central emphasis in the main entrance elevations and their simplicity reveal Dance's absorption of Neo-Classical principles.

Watkin (1992, p.51) considers that Dance's design was 'obviously influenced by Trouard's second Grand Prix project of 1753, and by designs by M.-J. Peyre such as his cathedral and two palaces, submitted in the competition of the Accademia di S.Luca in 1763, and his academy, prepared at the France Academy in Rome. With its rusticated windowless walls, stone domes, and top-lit one-storey interiors, Dance's gallery was partly inspired by Peyre's study of ancient Roman domestic architecture, in particular by the excavations undertaken by both Adam and Peyre at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli in the 1750s. Here is the origin of the theme of top-lit one-storeyed buildings, which recurred in the work of both Adam and Dance.'

Influence

In Dance's own work, the influence of his competition design can be seen in, for example, the plain treatment of the walls of Newgate Gaol while the rich decoration that he admired in Roman architecture and adapted for the Parma gallery was later used for Cranbury Park. 'One element common to both Cranbury and the Parma gallery is the double apsed ante-room with double column screen at each side, a transitional feature which breaks with the traditional sequence of connecting one major room directly to the nxt' (Kalman p85).

Dance's design was exhibited for some time at Parma (in 1776 Anne Lady Miller saw the drawings: Letters from Italy, 1776, quoted in Stroud p.71) and copies would have been shown by Dance to interested people. Kalman (pp.65-6) suggests that its influence can be seen in the Museo Pio-Clementino in the Vatican, begun 1771, and the Prado in Madrid, 1785, as well as the sculpture gallery added by Robert Adam to Newby Hall, Yorkshire, 1766-85. R. Middleton (1986, pp.51-2) agrees with Kalman's identification of Dance's competition design as the inspiration for Robert Adam's design, as does E. Harris (2001, pp.216-17) adding that Dance's design would have been known to James Adam who was in Rome at the time that the competition drawings were being worked on. Dr Harris also suggests (p.255) that Adam's design for the library at Luton Hoo with its 'recessed centre and projecting rooms with semicircular window bays recall George Dance's prize-winning Parma Academy design for a "Public Gallery"'. D Stillman (1988, p.403) suggests James Lewis's unexecuted and early scheme for a museum, which he published in Original Designs (1797), as another example of the influence of Dance's Parma competition entry.

Roberth Smirke (1780-1867) made a perspective of Dance's design in 1796 (RIBA Drawings Collection SC/92/1) that shows the gallery in an urban setting and with staffage; the end wings having four windows [SM D4/11/6] rather than one [SM D4/11/2]. Smirke, a student at the Royal Academy Schools from July 1796 and a protégé of Dance, may have made his perspective from a plan and elevation by Dance. The influence of Dance's design on Smirke is seen in his Royal Academy Gold Medal 'Design for a National Museum' (1799) which anticipated 'some columnar characterisitcs of Smirke's elevations for the British Museum' (Crooke & Port, 1973, pp.405-06).

Soane

Soane, who greatly admired Dance's design, had a plan, elevation and section [SM 18/7/3-6] copied for his Royal Academy Lecture VIII. The plan - now in two parts - shows the galleries on the main entrance side as more developed and details of the floor decoration are shown which do not appear on Dance's drawings (copies [SM D4/11/7] and [SM D4/11/8]). Soane said that 'In the exterior there is that successful variety in outline, largeness of parts, and uniform simplicity througout the whole ... In the plan there is a most happy combination of legitimate forms; in the transition from room to room, the uninterrupted succession of new ideas keeps attention alive, and increases the interest first excited. There is a most complete balance of parts between solids and voids and the whole breathes the true spirit of the finest examples of Greek and Roman architecture. In the interior the same variety of forms and combinations is kept up, whilst the rich assemblage of decoration of every kind, selected from the remains of ancient magnificence, are so happily introduced that each part seems to be in its original situation' (quoted in Watkin, 1996, p.604). What would probably have impressed Soane most was the masterly way in which Dance solved the problem of an entirely new building type. Of a monumental scale, with generous entrances and a legible plan, windowless walls and top-lit, single storey interiors combining galleries of different forms appropriately enriched, it held lessons that Soane applied to his great unrealised public projects as well as those, such as the Bank of England, that were built.

A pen-and-wash interior perspective (200 by 320 millimetres) inscribed on the verso over a rough elevation of a roof truss 'Perspective sketch of my Design for a Gallery / for which I obtained the prize of a Gold medal / from the Academy at Parma' was sold for £750 at Sotheby's 22 May 1986 (lot 216) and bought by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal (DR 1986: 0245). It shows the Great Gallery from one of the twin entrance halls and illustrates very well Dance's use of contrasting volumetric spaces and of light.

LITERATURE: S.Angell, 'Sketch of the professional life of George Dance architect R.A.' Builder, v, 1847, p.334: J Summerson, Architecture in Britain 1530 to 1830, 4th ed. 1963; Stroud pp.70-71, 98; Kalman pp.58-67; J.M. Crook & M.H. Port, The History of the King's Works 1782-1851, VI, 1973; D. Stillman, ' British Architects and Italian Architectural Competitions 1758-1780', Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XXXII, 1973, pp.43-66 (fig.19 reproduces the original ground floor plan preserved in the Accademia di Belle Arti; R.Middleton, 'The Sculpture Gallery at Newby Hall, AA Files, XIII, 1986; D.Stillman, English Neo-classical architecture, vol.II, 1988 (fig.10 reproduces the original ground floor plan preserved in the Accademia di Belle Arti, Parma); D.Watkin, 'Adam, Dance and the expression of character in architecture'. Adam in context, paper given at the Georgian Symposium, 1992: D. Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment thought and the Royal Academy lectures, Cambridge, 1996, pp.58-64, 367-8; M. Richardson & M Stevens (eds), John Soane Architect: master of space and light, catalogue of an exhibition at the Royal Academy, 1999, p.84; E.Harris, The Genius of Robert Adam, his interiors, 2001.

NOTES ON [SM D4/11/3], [SM D4/11/2], [SM D4/11/4]

Drawn and washed with great care, the set of five drawings on three sheets was made, it seems on Dance's return to London and differ from [SM D4/11/5], [SM D4/11/6] and [SM D4/11/1]. For example, none of the many blank windows, square recesses and semicircular alcoves that previously appeared, particularly on all four sides of each cortile, are shown. Again, the London set shows the entrance front(s) with the proportions of the upper windows changed, that is, squarer, the end three bays share a single window instead of four and the rustication is bolder. Internally, Dance removed door pediments and strengthened the roof trusses. The decoration of ceilings and walls is more fully shown than in [SM D4/11/5], [SM D4/11/6] and [SM D4/11/1]. The Doric order on the outside of the building as well as the Corinthian order inside are now shown as fluted; that they were left plain in [SM D4/11/5, [SM D4/11/6] and [SM D4/11/1] was probably to save drawing time.

Dance exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770 'A section of a royal gallery for sculpture' (No.70 and 'Plan of ditto' (No.71), perhaps this drawing and one of the two plans catalogued above.

Soane had the 'Section upon the line AB' copied for his Royal Academy Lecture VIII, No.47 (SM 18/7/5). The roof trusses and some details of the decoration were omitted.

Of the original competition drawings, only the plan is now at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Parma. Correspondence in the archive of the Accademia shows that Dance had intended to have his drawings ready in time. When he competed in 1763, giving Batoni and Pêcheux as his referees, the design was sent to Parma on 6 April and he was declared the winner on 23 May (J.Ingamells (ed.), A Dictionary of British and Irish travellers in Italy 1701-1800, 1997, entry on George Dance by F. Salmon).

NOTES ON [SM D4/11/7] and [SM D4/11/8]

These drawings are give in W.L. Spiers's inventory of 1907 (D, p.92) as '2...enlargements of a portion of the Plan', the point being that there is uncertainty as to whether these copies by Meyer may not have a Soane collection provenance. Earlier inventories do not give the number of drawings (that is, eight) for the scheme.

A folder inscribed by Dance (in pen) Sketch of my design / for the Medal at Parma / 1763 on Whatman paper dated 1794 is filed with the drawings (D4/11/1A). Dance re-used a sheet with two drawings for the Royal College of Surgeons (see [SM D4/14/27]).

See also designs for a domed building with colonnade [SM volume 42/101].

Group

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