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Signed and dated
- 1796
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Notes
The elevation shows a two-storey, seven-bay building with a portico of four unfluted columns in antis flanked by end bays framed by coupled pilasters, and is related to [SM D3/11/5]. Here, however, the arcuated base is not drawn in and the design differs in several ways; for example, Doric has been substituted for Tuscan, ashlar has replaced rusticated masonry, the parapet balustrade is replaced by plain panels, and the central figure of Britannia above the architrave now rests on one of three massive plinths decorated by stele motifs instead of the lively volute supports of [SM D3/11/5]. Dance's modifications have added gravitas to his design though the engraving (see note to [SM D3/11/5] did not include them.
Level
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).