St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, Finsbury, Islington, London, 1777, 1781-2 and c.1794-1811

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George Dance office drawings: the drawings of George Dance the Elder and George Dance the Younger
- Prison, courts and a lunatic hospital (5)
  - St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, Finsbury, Islington, London, 1777, 1781-2 and c.1794-1811 Competition design (by an unidentified architect), preliminary design by James Peacock?, contract drawings, specification and drawings of building as executed (32)

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Reference number

SM D4/1/16 and SM D4/1/17

Purpose

St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Old Street, Finsbury, Islington, London, 1777, 1781-2 and c.1794-1811

Aspect

[25 and 26] Eight cross-sections from N to S and copy

Scale

1/14 in to 1 ft

Inscribed

([SM D4/1/16] verso) St Luke's Hop^l/ rough Transvere secⁿ, sections titled, for example, Section from North to South thro' double Cells and Galleries / uponi the Line IK Plan N^o2, Section from North to South thro' Pump Recess &c across Galleries / upon the Line EF Plan N^o 2, dimensions given and (verso of [SM D4/1/17]) St Luke's Hop^l/ rough Transverse Sectⁿ

Signed and dated

c.1794-1811

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil within single ruled border, pricked for transfer on wove paper (635 x 985, 635 x 990)

Hand

see note below

Watermark

([SM D4/1/16]) 1794 J Whatman ([SM D4/1/17]) E&P 1801

Notes

These correspond to the four cross-sections of contract drawings [SM D4/2/6] except that three Serlian windows shown in the contract drawing on the section across the galleries are not drawn here; presumably, they were omitted because of the cost.

Drawings [SM D4/1/9], [SM D4/1/8], [SM D4/1/6], [SM D4/1/5] , [SM D4/1/12], [SM D4/1/14], [SM D4/1/15], [SM D4/1/18], [SM D4/1/16], nine in all, share the same watermark (1794 J Whatman) and office draughtsmanship. [SM D4/1/10], [SM D4/1/7], [SM D4/1/13], [SM D4/1/17] are drawn by another office hand on paper watermarked 1801, [SM D4/1/11] does not have a watermark but is by the same hand as the 1794 group, and [SM D4/1/19], more finished than the rest, is on paper watermarked 1811.

The purpose of the drawings of St Luke's Hospital as executed is probably to do with the interest shown by others concerned with the design of asylums. These included John Bevans of The Retreat near York, and the commissioners of a lunatic hospital in Copenhagen (see general notes below) by whom George Pepys was paid for making their copies, a profitable sideline no doubt for the office assistants.

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.

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