Gandy's Breakfast Room perspective is very similar in purpose and design to his Library interior perspective (221) and was thus probably made at a similar time, late 1802 or early 1803. However, there is no record of it being exhibited at the Royal Academy as the Library perspective was. The watercolour was clearly made so that Soane could visualise his collection and the room together.

Importantly, the Cawdor vase (which Soane had bought in 1800) can be seen (on the viewer's right hand side), standing in pride of place. Eventually, the importance of this object to the design of the room was to be even more obvious, as Susan Feinberg indicates: 'A wall opposite the mantle, for instance, was composed of red and yellow panels. The Cawdor Vase, a celebrated ancient piece of red and black ware, stood in front of it. Together, they formed an architectonic unit'.

The decorative scheme of the Breakfast Room was based on the third style of Pompeian interiors, and Soane wrote in his diary of arranging the vases in the Breakfast Room at Pitzhanger, in January 1803.

S. Feinberg, 'Pitzhanger Manor: The Beginnings of Soane's Museum' in Sir John Soane's Museum, UMI Research Press 1987, p.21

Group

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