to a scale

on a ribbon, the motto STABILIS and (Soane) M^r Geo. Dance

• c.1766

Brown pen and wash on laid secretary paper (150 x 190)

Dance, Soane

Pro Patria and (part) Britannia with shield and spear

The executed design for a memorial tablet to the Duroure brothers is dated 1766, not very long after Dance had returned from Italy and before he succeeded his father as Clerk of the City Works. He may have been glad to have the commission even if it was a slight one. The design catalogued here is not as executed. It shows a coat of arms consisting of a shield charged with an oak tree and bearing a (closed) helmet and lion's head crest with a torse and mantlings. The shield is enclosed by a chaplet of oak leaves above a ribbon inscribed 'STABILIS' (firm, steady) and Sir Bernard Burke's General Armory... (1884) confirms that the Duroure heraldic device was indeed 'an oak tree ppr'. Here it is shown against a slightly raised obelisk that forms the top part of a wall tablet, the lower part with inscriptions lacking. The design is drawn within pointed trefoiled blank tracery and this provides the clue to its identification. Dorothy Stroud publishes a photograph of a memorial tablet to the brothers Scipio and Alexander Duroure set against the east wall of the cloister - with pointed trefoil blank arcading - at Westminster Abbey; the monument is signed at the side 'George Dance Junr. Archt. 1766'. The memorial was commissioned by Frances Duroure, son of Scipio and nephew of Alexander, both 'Valiant Soldiers' who had died in 1745 and 1765 respectively. As executed, an urn with festoons and leaf decoration was substituted for the heraldic device; below is a tablet with the inscription. The tablet is framed by an egg-and-dart moulding enclosed by four narrow sunk panels outlined with beading and with a rosette in each corner; a cornice is decorated with acanthus above a bead-and-reel moulding and the twin brackets below the tablet each have a festoon. Sited too high and now dirty and neglected, the monument goes unremarked.

The drawing comes from Soane's personal collection and was probably acquired when he was working for Dance between 1768 and 1772. If so, the inscription was added later since (according to Susan Palmer, Soane Museum Archivist) it is not in his teenage hand.

Dance seems to have designed few wall monuments. There is a finished design in the British Museum (Prints & Drawings Department, 1907.5/15-86) for a memorial tablet to Jeremiah Meyer RA (born 1736, died 19 January 1789) with 12 lines of verse by William Hayley beginning 'Meyer: in thy works the world will ever see / How great the loss of art in losing thee...'. It bears a roundel with a profile of the artist in bas relief above a lunette with winged putti holding a palette. Meyer, a foundation member of the Royal Academy, was an enamel and miniature painter. 'A mural tablet to his memory, with a medallion portrait and some eulogistic verses by Hayley, is in Kew Church' (DNB). It is still in the parish church of St Anne, Kew Green.

For a wall monument with obelisk, urn and tablet designed by George Dance the Elder see [SM volume 18/17].

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