[44] Presentation drawing for the interior of the Doric Vestibule, July 1803

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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)
    - 1799-1810 Expansions north-west and rebuilding of existing offices (487)
      - Doric Vestibule, 1803-1805 (70)

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Reference number

SM 11/4/4

Purpose

[44] Presentation drawing for the interior of the Doric Vestibule, July 1803

Aspect

Interior perspective looking east

Signed and dated

July 29. 1803

Hand

Probably Gandy, Joseph Michael (1771--1843), draughtsman
Soane office
Probably Benedictus Antonio van Assen (1767 - 1817, fl. c.1788), draughtsman

Notes

This drawing was re-used as an illustration for Soane's Lecture VI at the Royal Academy, in which he condemns his own design as an example of the improper composition of arches with Greek orders. In the lecture, Soane criticizes his own design but cautiously hems it in praise: 'I shall instance a building which has received no small portion of approbation, and had I not been led by the composition of these lectures to search into original causes and first principles, the defects in this design would not have been noticed' (Watkin, p.568).

The drawing was possibly exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1808 under the title 'View of a vestibule in the Bank of England' (RA No. 931). The perspective is by Gandy and the staffage was added by the painter Antonio van Assen (exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1778 and 1804).

Literature

D. Watkin, Sir John Soane: englightenment thought and the Royal Academy lectures, 1996.

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).