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Finsbury Square, Islington, London 1783 and 1789
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Reference number
SM D4/6/4
Purpose
Finsbury Square, Islington, London 1783 and 1789
Aspect
[1] Elevation of the side of Finsbury Square next to the Artillery Ground, not as executed
Scale
9 feet in an Inch
Inscribed
as above, lot 742 Ft 6, Lot 830 Ft 9, Lot 928 Ft 9, (verso) Finsbury / Elevation for Buildg on Lots / 7, 8, 9, &ca E Side / Artillery Ground and Finsbury / Elevation for building on Lots / 7, 8, 9, &ca E side Arty / Ground / Box A (or 4) No 11
Signed and dated
- 1783
Medium and dimensions
Pen, sepia and burnt umber washes, pencil, shaded on laid paper, strip added (300 x 690)
Hand
Peacock
Notes
The drawing has been cut at both ends, and, of the 34 bays, 25 are shown; the nine bays to the north are missing. The storey height is three floors plus a mansard (undisguised by a parapet) and basement. The rhythm is complex at ground floor level with doors alternating with either one or two windows so that there are 11 doors in this incomplete elevation. In execution, the arrangement was changed to nine doors in all. Ignoring the accented seven-bay pavilion end, the general pattern is that the first and second floors of each third bay are framed by a giant order crowned by a scrolly pediment (or acroterion) and urn. The pilasters with their upright feather-like (narrow leaf) motif, the decorative panels and tympana between the second and third flloors are similar to those in the executed design. However, some details were omitted so that the scrolly pediments and urns went and, in the end bays, a single Diocletian window replaced three square windows set in an attic storey. The unusual foliated brackets or volutes either side of the raised attic sotrey of the pavilion were retained.
An elevation of 'the West side of Finsbury Square' of 1783 at the Corporation of London Records Office (Comptroller's City Lands Plans 243) that was presumablly made soon after the drawing catalogued above shows the executed design except that it includes a parapet decorated with urns that was omitted when built. It is drawn and inscribed by the same hand as drawing [SM D4/6/4]; Kalman (p.370, n.16) considers that the inscription on [SM D4/6/4] may be by Dance's assistant James Peacock and, on the evidence of the draughtmanship, the drawing has been attributed to him in this catalogue.
The west side of Finsbury Square was built first, and perhaps because it fronted a road broader than the other sides of the Square and formed part of City Road, it was given a different more distinctive frontage. As built, there were nine brick and stucco houses that despite their regular, unified composition were of different sizes. A plan of the Square ([SM D4/6/5]), has the width of each front marked (from south to north) 71 feet, 40 feet, 29 feet 3 inches, 28 feet 9 inches (twice), 28 feet, 27 feet 8 inches, 36 feet 8 inches and 27 feet 3 inches. Externally, the symmetry is maintained except that the seven-bay pavilion at the north end has two front doors with one at the very end as well as in the centre. The large house at the south end was the combined residence and showrooms of Thomas Moore who sold textiles, hosiery and Moorfields capets. Moore also bought three adjacent houses around the corner in Chiswell Street as part of his new premises. One of them had been the Dance family home since the 1720s and was still owned by George Dance though he had let it since 1775.
The authorship of the west side of Finsbury Square is not clear. Kalman (pp.204-05) considers that the use of ornament and the fussy horror vacui contradicts the tendency towards simplicity of Dance's work between 1775 and 1785 and that, together with other factors including the utilitarian elimination of parapets, suggests James Peacock as the architect. On the grounds of stylistic affinity as well as Dance's personal connection with the area, Stroud (pp.130-132) prefers to attribute the design to him. Summerson (Georgian London, 1988, p.105) gives the design to Peacock, writing that the 'terrace was quite exceptional in the logic and decorative originality of its design, the garret roofs being frankly exposed as mansards instead of concealed behind a light-inhibiting parapet'.
An elevation of 'the West side of Finsbury Square' of 1783 at the Corporation of London Records Office (Comptroller's City Lands Plans 243) that was presumablly made soon after the drawing catalogued above shows the executed design except that it includes a parapet decorated with urns that was omitted when built. It is drawn and inscribed by the same hand as drawing [SM D4/6/4]; Kalman (p.370, n.16) considers that the inscription on [SM D4/6/4] may be by Dance's assistant James Peacock and, on the evidence of the draughtmanship, the drawing has been attributed to him in this catalogue.
The west side of Finsbury Square was built first, and perhaps because it fronted a road broader than the other sides of the Square and formed part of City Road, it was given a different more distinctive frontage. As built, there were nine brick and stucco houses that despite their regular, unified composition were of different sizes. A plan of the Square ([SM D4/6/5]), has the width of each front marked (from south to north) 71 feet, 40 feet, 29 feet 3 inches, 28 feet 9 inches (twice), 28 feet, 27 feet 8 inches, 36 feet 8 inches and 27 feet 3 inches. Externally, the symmetry is maintained except that the seven-bay pavilion at the north end has two front doors with one at the very end as well as in the centre. The large house at the south end was the combined residence and showrooms of Thomas Moore who sold textiles, hosiery and Moorfields capets. Moore also bought three adjacent houses around the corner in Chiswell Street as part of his new premises. One of them had been the Dance family home since the 1720s and was still owned by George Dance though he had let it since 1775.
The authorship of the west side of Finsbury Square is not clear. Kalman (pp.204-05) considers that the use of ornament and the fussy horror vacui contradicts the tendency towards simplicity of Dance's work between 1775 and 1785 and that, together with other factors including the utilitarian elimination of parapets, suggests James Peacock as the architect. On the grounds of stylistic affinity as well as Dance's personal connection with the area, Stroud (pp.130-132) prefers to attribute the design to him. Summerson (Georgian London, 1988, p.105) gives the design to Peacock, writing that the 'terrace was quite exceptional in the logic and decorative originality of its design, the garret roofs being frankly exposed as mansards instead of concealed behind a light-inhibiting parapet'.
Level
Drawing
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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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