to a scale

• c.1785

Pen and watercolour technique within a single ruled border on laid? paper, (original) cloth backing, previously framed (910 x 680)

Dance

A stepped base supports a capped circular drum above which is an octagonal, blank chamber with projecting coupled Corinthian columns on alternate faces. Above is a plinth with festoons that supports an octagonal blind lantern with panelled female figures in relief; the central one wears a helmet - an attribute of Minerva or of Britannia - the one on the left, a sprig of olive? The final stage is a dome enriched by pediment-like half-paterae and crowned by an urn bearing fruit. At ground level, the plain, square-headed monolithic door is flanked by crouching lions and supports a female mourning figure with lance, circular shield, flag and wreath suggesting perhaps a military connection. A realistic snake with its tail in its mouth, symbol of eternity and also associated with Minerva as goddess of Wisdom rather than War, encircles the top of the drum.

R. Bowdler and C. Woodward ('"An Ornamental Structure and Very Likely to be Damaged...": Sir John Soane's Tomb in St Pancras Gardens, London', Architectural History, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, XLII, 1999, pp.246-62) wrote that the first use of the snake device, called an ouroboros, to encircle an entire structure was Soane's tomb designed in 1816. 'The idea came from George Dance, his first teacher, who exhibited a design for a circular mausoleum entwined by a serpent at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1785... the drawing must have been scrutinized by Soane, for two months later he coiled an ouroboros around the base of a memorial column erected in the grounds of Felbridge Hall, Surrey' (p.256). Later Soane used the device in an unexecuted design for a new church that was also the Praed family funerary chapel at Tyringham, Buckinghamshire, 1800.

The 'Dance Leoni' volume at the RIBA Drawings Collection contains two preliminary studies for the design catalogued here. Harold Kalman states that these are 'studies for a watercolour presentation drawing which may be the mausoleum exhibited by Dance at the Royal Academy in 1785 .... In these studies the monument is octagonal with receding tiers; the middle level has pairs of columns on alternate sides. The entrance, approached by steps, is guarded by vigilant lions' (Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, vol.C-F, p.63, Nos 120 and 121, No.121 reproduced as fig.53). Above the doorway a woman weeps over a sarcophagus.

The drawing catalogued above was clearly framed at one time and, judging by its condition, must have hung for many years in Dance's house or elsewhere. Kalman (p.119) notes that Dance donated 'renderings of some of his own designs to be hung' in the Common Council Chamber of the Guildhall at about the time that Alderman John Boydell gave a large collection of paintings to be hung there in 1792. Dance's drawings were removed in 1815 soon after his resignation as Clerk of Works.

Dance seldom exhibited at the Royal Academy and when he did, portraits far out-numbered architectural designs. In fact, between 1770 and 1799 he exhibited only five architectural drawings.

Drawing

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