Design and working drawing for the eating room (2)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Country houses, etc.
  - Letton Hall, Norfolk: (executed) house for Dillingham Brampton Gurdon Dillingham, 1783-1789 (74)

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Reference number

SM (45) 28/7/15, (46) 81/1/23

Purpose

Design and working drawing for the eating room (2)

Aspect

45 Plan and laid-out wall elevations showing a rectangular room (about 33 by 22 feet) with two panelled doors in each of three sides (two of the doors blind) and a pair of tall windows at one end under a wide arched ceiling compartment
46 Elevation of Chimney Piece, Moldings &c to Chimney / Piece full size, Profile of Pannel of Tablet C / full size labelled B. Composition / The Ornaments in Tablet / to be of Composition / Festoons of Oak leaves / & Acorns with Vases; (verso) unfinished full size details of another chimney-piece with a pine cone, dentil and tongue moulding to the mantelshelf and with guilloche moulding to the frame of the fireplace opening

Scale

(45) bar scale of 1/5 in to 1 ft (approximately) (46) bar scale of 1/7 in to 1 ft (approximately) and full size

Inscribed

(45) (George Bailey, curator 1837-60) B.G.Dillingham Esq^re, Design for the Eating Room at Letton Hall
(46) as above, labelled Composition (four times), Front of Marble, Line of Pannel of Pilaster, Line of Frize, Projection of Water Leaf, Line of Tablet, Wall line, X The Pateras in Pilaster to be / omitted and Scroll of Ornam^t/ in their place, Statuary Marble (three times), D E, some dimensions given and (Soane, pencil) Eat^gRoom Acc^tGen^l

Medium and dimensions

(45) Pen, sepia, pink, green and Venetian red washes, shaded within double ruled and wash border on laid paper (441 x 548) (46) pen, black, sepia, pink and blue washes, shaded on laid paper with one fold mark (538 x 699)

Hand

(45-46) John Sanders (pupil 1784-90)

Watermark

(45) J Whatman, fleur-de-lis above cartouche with bar and below, ornate W (46) J Whatman, fleur-de-lis within crowned cartouche and below, ornate W

Notes

Drawing 46 was probably made for presentation since it is carefully drawn and washed. The elaborate Doric frieze with female masks (Bacchante) and crossed ? batons with three poppy-heads between the triglyphs (this last detail was also used for the eating room at Taverham see volume 41/43 recto), the stucco panels with a thyrsus twined with ivy (symbols of Bacchus) seem rather over-wrought. The pink-painted walls (close to those found, for example, in the newly restored front drawing room of 14 Lincoln's Inn Fields) have 14 wall panels, painted an 'Adam-ish' green, that contribute to the congested feel of the room. The design as well as the drawing were perhaps by the young John Sanders (pupil 1784-90) .
Though the design of drawing 46 is again somewhat overwrought with an anthemion and acanthus frieze for the the mantelshelf, a frieze-tablet with festoons, ribbons and urns, flanked by water leaves and Bacchante masks, guilloche moulding around the frame to the fireplace opening and more quatrefoil paterae on the pilasters that are to be replaced, the draughtsmanship is confident. There is an entry in SM Journal No.1, p.13, for 21 February 1788 - 'Sent by Post to Wilkins, drawing of / Ornament to Frize of Eating Room / instead of the Bacchus' Head / which was intended' and (22 February) 'Sent by Penny Post to the Adelphi / drawing of Ornament for Frize / instead of the Bacchus' Head. / A fair Sketch on ½ sheet of Fools / cap [foolscap ?] paper.' A later entry (23 June 1788) has 'Sanders ordered of Mrs Lane / 20 in. / of Honey Suckle, 1 foot of Ovols, / and Acorn, 4 leaves for Frize / for Eating Room Chimney. / 18 Husks for Pilasters, Chamber / Chimney Piece' but then again (1 July), 'Sanders ordered at Lane's for / Eating Room Chimney. / 4 Festoons of Oak Leaves & / Acorns for Tablets, 4 leaves / for Frize, 1 foot of Honey- / suckle 2 feet of Acorns / 4 flowers & ribbon'.
'Mrs Lane' has not yet been traced but presumably (rather like Mrs Coade) was a supplier of architectural ornament. See also drawing 57 for a note on Mr Dove and composition for ornamental work.

Level

Drawing

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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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