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