[7] Revised design

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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
    - Designs for a 'Castello d'acqua', August 1779-1780, with later rough alternative designs by George Dance (10)

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Reference number

SM volume 42/136

Purpose

[7] Revised design

Aspect

Elevation, rough plans, part-plans and detail of sluice

Scale

to a scale (elevation)

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, sepia wash, pen, shading on laid paper (231 x 369)

Hand

Soane (see below for note on Dance)

Watermark

(feint) roundel with (indistinct) dove (Italian ?)

Notes

It is tempting to attribute this drawing to George Dance since the draughtsmanship of the elevation, and especially the use of wash, suggests his hand. But the paper appears to be Italian and the following drawings which are by Dance are for quite different designs and, it is assumed, were made after Soane's return to London.The very rough plans show an H-plan flanked by fountains, four on each side, and a ? related elevation with a semicircular arch; and a part-plan that squares the familiar X-plan of earlier designs. Below the festooned parapet, the elevation is close to SM 45/1/20, though greater in height. Above, all is different: the centre has a storey pierced by a lunette-shaped sluice gate crowned by a stepped pyramid rather than a dome; flanking the centre are sculptural capriccios and crowning it, on a wide, stepped pedestal, an equestrian statue. Below at ground level, sculpted figures pour water into a pool; on either side of the building are fountains.

Literature

P. du Prey, John Soane's architectural education 1753-80, 1977, pp.277-8
P. du Prey, John Soane: the making of an architect, 1982, p.186

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).