[81] Working drawing for the Bullion Arch attic, November 1799

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Bank of England
  - Bank of England, City of London for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 1788-1834 (1356)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (431)
      - Lothbury Court and surrounding offices, 1797-1801 (109)

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Reference number

SM 10/3/45

Purpose

[81] Working drawing for the Bullion Arch attic, November 1799

Aspect

Elevation showing attic pilasters and niche; details of mouldings; and part-wall plan of twin columns

Scale

to a scale and full size (twice)

Inscribed

(Bailey) Sketches of details of "Lothbury Court", (Soane) For Bank Entrance, Wall line (twice), Line of frieze & Arch, Center of Colⁿ, Wall line over / Center arch, and a key I, K, L, dimensions given, (red pen) Wall line

Signed and dated

L.I.F., Nov. 10: 1799

Hand

Soane and Soane office

Notes

It appears that throughout November 1799 Soane was still experimenting with proportions and decoration of the Bullion Arch: mainly, the proportion between the windows and central entrance, and the decorative treatment of the slender strips of wall between the columns on either side of the entrance. In some drawings, the windows are diminished and a roundel is included to cover the wall space above them. In these cases, the space between the columns is left more plainly decorated. When the windows are enlarged, however, emphasis on the central doorway is maintained by increasing the ornamentation surrounding it. The dominance of central door over subsidiary windows therefore never changes.

SM volume 69/47, SM volume 69/46, SM volume 69/48 and SM volume 69/49 are sketches by Joseph M. Gandy and this drawing appears to be a working drawing for the same design. The extra panel joining the antefixes above the attic was added in November of 1799. The concept of niches situated above the two windows was also a new inclusion at this time.

Level

Drawing

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

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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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