Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, West Smithfield, City of London, 1789

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George Dance office drawings: the drawings of George Dance the Elder and George Dance the Younger
- Churches (7)
  - Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, West Smithfield, City of London, 1789. Survey drawings, design, amended design and working drawings (15)

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Reference number

SM D4/9/14

Purpose

Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less, West Smithfield, City of London, 1789

Aspect

[15] Plan of the Gothic Pillars & their bases / & the Mouldings of Archways and elevation of Cap of Gothic Pill(ar)

Scale

Scale 6 In^s to a Foot

Inscribed

as above, labelled including Plinth, Plaister (four times), Timbers and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

1789

Medium and dimensions

Pen, burnt umber, sepia and yellow washes, pencil partly pricked for transfer, on laid paper (980 x 595)

Hand

Dance

Watermark

J Whatman

Notes

The capital resembles an inverted saucer over a pair of annulets over an inverted cone, which is to say, Dance's version of Early English, and without the feathery, serrated leaf ornament sketched in on [SM D4/9/13]. J.P. Malcolm (Londinium Redivivum or an Ancient History and Modern Description of London, I, London, 1803, p.303) notes that the executed capitals were carved with the Prince of Wales's crest - that is, with ostrich feathers. Malcolm also wrote that 'The clustered columns, and pointed arches, in their intersections, are well imagined. Indeed, the whole inside is chaste and simple, and by very far the best attempt of modern days to imitate the Saracenic, Gothic style, I have seen.' Malcolm's use here of the term 'Saracenic' is intriguing. For Dance's use of Indian architectural elements see the note on the Guildhall, London [SM 18/7/13].

Level

Drawing

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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).