[10] Presentation drawing for alternative Design No 1 for the College on a quadrangular plan

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Public buildings
  - London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, Southwark for the Governors of Dulwich College, 1811-1813 (108)
    - Five alternative preliminary designs, April to May 1811 (16)

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Reference number

SM 65/4/7

Purpose

[10] Presentation drawing for alternative Design No 1 for the College on a quadrangular plan

Aspect

Bird's eye views

Inscribed

as above, N^o II, Dulwich College

Signed and dated

(Soane) Lincolns Inn Fields / 17 Ap: 1811 and April 1811

Medium and dimensions

Pen and coloured washes, watercolour technique, shaded, within a six-ruled pen and sepia and black wash border on wove paper (325 x 468)

Hand

George Bailey (1792-1860, pupil and Soane office assistant 1806-1837, curator 1837-1860) (Day Book entry for 17 April 1811)

Watermark

Ruse & Turners 1805

Notes

The first design for Dulwich College was on a quadrangular plan, open to the east. The east and west wings of the College are outlined in pen indicating demolition. Although the south wing remains, its west half is completely remodelled to match the chapel on the east half. Pink wash is used to indicate building alterations and additions. This new quadrangular plan is sited to the south of the existing south range of the College.

In the second plan the Gallery is clearly labelled in the new south wing opposite the chapel. However in the bird's eye views the Gallery has been moved to the west side of the quadrangle. The Mausoleum is a two-storey cubic structure attached to the south-east corner of the chapel. In his will, Bourgeois had requested that the Mausoleum would be attached to the chapel. However, in the second bird's eye view the location of the Mausoleum is unclear though the inscription states placed with the Gallery, which suggests it is on the west side of the quadrangle. In these first few designs the position of the Mausoleum seems to be of relatively minor importance.

Literature

G. Waterfield, Soane and after: the architecture of Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1987, p. 27
F. Nevola, Soane's favourite subject: the story of Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2000, pp. 21 & 173-174

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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.

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).