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Purpose

Variant designs and working drawings with segmental pedimented cap, 10-18 November 1801 (8)

Notes

Drawings 168-175 as a group show the next stage of progression in the design process. The cap, consisting of a pendentive dome with segmental pediments on four sides and surmounted by a pine-cone finial, replaces the four-sided triangular pediment, which has now been completely abandoned. All of the drawings show the use of this pendentive dome cap with either a roundel or an ornate wreath relief in the segmental arches: drawing 168 as a detail and the later drawings as part of the whole or part-scheme. The finial ornament of the cap could be a pine-cone and perhaps taken by Soane from the thyrsus, a wand tipped with a pine-cone and an attribute of Bacchus. Soane had earlier used the thyrsus motif for ceilings and chimney-pieces in his designs for dining rooms.

Literature

P. Dean, Sir John Soane and the country estate, 1999, p. 93; G. Darley, John Soane: an accidental Romantic, 1999, p. 158; J. Summerson, 'Sir John Soane and the Furniture of Death', The Unromantic Castle and other essays, 1990, p.135

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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

Contents of Variant designs and working drawings with segmental pedimented cap, 10-18 November 1801 (8)