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Reference number

SM 81/1/25 verso

Purpose

[16] Preliminary design for the Great Hall or saloon and entrance hall

Aspect

Section through the domed saloon (to the left) and entrance hall with first floor over

Scale

Signed and dated

  • 1788 - 1789
    Datable to c 1788-1789 in accord with the other drawings in this group

Medium and dimensions

Pencil on laid paper (486 x 645)

Hand

SOANE, Sir John (1754--1837), architect
Soane

Watermark

J Whatman, fleur-de-lis within crowned cartouche with GR below

Notes

On the verso of a finished design for a chimneypiece for Fonthill Splendens Soane's rapidly drawn section shows his proposal for re-modelling the medieval Great Hall/saloon. To overcome the difficulties of its hemmed-in site, Soane proposed top lighting the large room by a canopy dome with skylight. Plate 16 of Soane's Plans, elevations and sections of buildings erected in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk ..., 1788 (1789) is a 'Section of the Great Room' reproduces a finished design with a canopy dome that relates to this drawing. Ptolemy Dean has shown (Country Life, 30 September 1999, p.84) that the timber support for a canopy dome was built but instead a more conventional saucer dome was carried out. The drawing also shows the existing poorly-lit first floor corridor which was eventually to be top-lit with a pair of smaller, canopy domes that were executed (see drawing 19).

Literature

see below

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