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Shakespeare Gallery, 52 Pall Mall, Westminster, London, 1788-9
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Soane office, George Dance the Younger, 52 Pall Mall, Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery (later the British Institution). SM 18/7/14. ©Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Photo: Geremy Butler
Reference number
SM 18/7/14
Purpose
Shakespeare Gallery, 52 Pall Mall, Westminster, London, 1788-9
Aspect
[1] Front elevation
Scale
9/16 in to 1 ft
Inscribed
(red pen) 59
Dated: April:10 1810
Signed and dated
- 1788-9
Medium and dimensions
Pen, yellow ochre, blue, sepia, shaded, pencil, within multiple-ruled and sepia and black wash border on thick wove paper (980 x 685)
Hand
Soane office (Bailey)
Watermark
James Whatman Turkey Mill Kent
Notes
This elevation was prepared as drawing 32 for Soane's Lecture IV, first given at the Royal Academy on 29 January 1810 (according to the 'List of Soane's lecture illustrations at the Royal Academy', D Watkin, Sir John Soane: Enlightenment thought and the Royal Academy lectures, Cambridge 1996, p.32), though this drawing is dated 10 April 1810. A reduced version of the drawing is in the Soane Museum (SM, Soane Case 38, no.27). Soane's Day Book records on 10 April 1810 Mr Soane / About Drawing of the / British Gallery &c &c / Bailey, that is George Bailey (1792- 1860), a pupil in Soane's office.
Soane's choice of the Shakespeare Gallery (by the time of his lecture, the British Institution) was related to his condemnation of the illogical use of antae or of pilasters. It was a survey that ranged from the buildings of Antiquity via Palladio, Wren and Jones to Dance's Royal College of Surgeons. Soane's argument was that to use a massive entablature designed for columns over slender pilasters was a 'strange and extravagant absurdity' (Watkin, 1996, p.136).
REPRODUCED. A. Stratton, 'Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall', Architectural Review, XLI, 1917, pp.49-52; Survey of London, Parish of St James, Westminster, XXX, 1960, pls 43a-c; Stroud fig 55b; M.Kerney, 'Ammonite architecture', Country Life, CLXXIII. 1983, pp.214-15, 218, fig.2.
Soane's choice of the Shakespeare Gallery (by the time of his lecture, the British Institution) was related to his condemnation of the illogical use of antae or of pilasters. It was a survey that ranged from the buildings of Antiquity via Palladio, Wren and Jones to Dance's Royal College of Surgeons. Soane's argument was that to use a massive entablature designed for columns over slender pilasters was a 'strange and extravagant absurdity' (Watkin, 1996, p.136).
REPRODUCED. A. Stratton, 'Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall', Architectural Review, XLI, 1917, pp.49-52; Survey of London, Parish of St James, Westminster, XXX, 1960, pls 43a-c; Stroud fig 55b; M.Kerney, 'Ammonite architecture', Country Life, CLXXIII. 1983, pp.214-15, 218, fig.2.
Level
Drawing
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk