[1] Rough domed designs on a trefoil plan by George Dance, before 18 March 1778

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Soane's architectural education: Royal Academy and Italy including measured drawings: 1770-1780
  - Soane's architectural education including theoretical designs made for the Royal Academy Schools and for exhibition at the Royal Academy, 1770-80, and in Italy, 1778-80
    - Preliminary, early, intermediate and late designs, copies, perspectives by J.M.Gandy and R.A. exhibition drawing, 1778-1799, for the so-called 'Chatham mausoleum' for the Earl of Chatham died 11 May 1778 (15)

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Reference number

SM volume 42/172 verso

Purpose

[1] Rough domed designs on a trefoil plan by George Dance, before 18 March 1778

Aspect

Sketch plan consisting of a circle on a square with apses on three sides and a portico in antis on the fourth side, all on a trefoil terrace, and with four pyramids placed at the intersections of the trefoil-shaped terrace; trefoil within a trefoil plan; part plan with semicircular elements (together with three other rough, unrelated plans); two rough, related elevations - one with a pyramidal composition; and a section

Inscribed

(inscribed by Dance) Phoenix ( as a dome finial, associated with resurrection and found in funerary sculpture) and Sepulchral Urns (for the terraces)

Signed and dated

datable to before 18 March 1778

Medium and dimensions

Brown pen on laid secretary paper, worn, with three fold marks (389 x 269 on half of the sheet )

Hand

George Dance (1741-1825)

Watermark

dove on monti, C and I within a roundel

Notes

The first mentioned plan is clearly the antecedent of the later plan seen in SM 45/1/23. The drawing on the recto of the sheet is a sketch design by Dance for a British Senate House (q.v.) made before Soane's departure to Italy on 18 March 1778. It must be presumed that Dance's design for a mausoleum on a trefoil plan on the verso of this sheet was also made before 18 March 1778, and thus two months before the Earl of Chatham's death. Soane had a strong interest in the design of mausolea and may have that building type in mind as a subject for a design to be sent back to London for exhibition at the Royal Academy. Thus, it seems that Dance's sketch designs were generalised without any particular person in mind. There is something puzzling here which is that the drawings were made on Italian-made paper. As a very young man, Dance made a design for a garden temple on a trefoil plan see J.Lever, Catalogue of the drawings of George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) ... from the collection of Sir John Soane's Museum, 2003, catalogue [3]. In the first rough designs, the more complex plan shown here is (du Prey, op.cit) 'almost a direct copy of the 'Petite Eglise Ou Rotonde' engraved in Marie-Joseph Peyre's Oeuvres d'architecture, Paris, 1765.

Literature

P. du Prey, John Soane's architectural education 1753-80, 1977, pp.134-6

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