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[6] Competition design No.7 with motto 'To your decree I bend'
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Reference number
SM 13/1/10
Purpose
[6] Competition design No.7 with motto 'To your decree I bend'
Aspect
(inscribed by Dance ?) Plan of the One Pair of Stairs Story
Scale
bar scale 1/14 in to 1 ft
Inscribed
as above, rooms labelled: Warming room (six times, with varying dimensions), Gallery, Master's Bed- / chamber / 20 feet square, Committee room / 30 by 20, Waiting room / 15 by 14.6, Water / Closet, Mens / Wardrobe / 9 by 15, Surgery / 17 by 10.6. No7 (competition number added). To your decree I bend (competition motto)
Signed and dated
- datable to before 31 May 1777
Medium and dimensions
Pen and wash within double ruled border on laid paper with one fold mark (618 x 970)
Hand
Soane
Watermark
J Whatman
Notes
Robert Baldwin's hand can be seen in the titles while the rendering of the elevation and section and the fine pen lines of, for example, the roof, railing and rustication reflect Baldwin's distinctive palette and drawing style. George Dance may have written a few of the labels, those with 'printed' lettering (plain, forward sloping and not joined up) are like those of some of his own drawings (cf. SM D2/9/9). On the other hand, Baldwin sometimes used the same sort of simple lettering (cf. SM volume 9/7). In fact, it is quite usual to have several people working on competition drawings and the plans may have been drawn by Soane, Baldwin or indeed, Dance.
The plan is a stretched ellipse. A plan form that later appears in the preliminary studies by George Dance for a British Senate House that was adopted by Soane for the final design exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779. See (Soane's architectural education ...): Preliminary designs, some by George Dance, final design exhibited at the Royal Academy, reduced copies, and perspectives by J.M.Gandy and George Bailey, for a British Senate House 1778-9 and later (16)
The elevation is plainer than the earlier design and has the lunette windows within two-storey blind arches found in Dance's executed scheme. See J.Lever, Catalogue of the drawings of George Dance the Younger ..., 2003, catalogue [34]
The plan is a stretched ellipse. A plan form that later appears in the preliminary studies by George Dance for a British Senate House that was adopted by Soane for the final design exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779. See (Soane's architectural education ...): Preliminary designs, some by George Dance, final design exhibited at the Royal Academy, reduced copies, and perspectives by J.M.Gandy and George Bailey, for a British Senate House 1778-9 and later (16)
The elevation is plainer than the earlier design and has the lunette windows within two-storey blind arches found in Dance's executed scheme. See J.Lever, Catalogue of the drawings of George Dance the Younger ..., 2003, catalogue [34]
Literature
P.du Prey, John Soane: the making of an architect, 1982. Chapter 3 (Architecture for madness: the St Luke's competition)
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