[48] Presentation drawing for variant design for Mausoleum facing west, 24 and 28 October 1811

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Public buildings
  - London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, Southwark for the Governors of Dulwich College, 1811-1813 (108)
    - The Mausoleum relocated from the east to the west front of the Gallery, October to November 1811 (5)

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Reference number

SM 65/4/18

Purpose

[48] Presentation drawing for variant design for Mausoleum facing west, 24 and 28 October 1811

Aspect

Perspective of the west front with Mausoleum

Signed and dated

Lincolns Inn Fields. Oct 24^th 1811

Medium and dimensions

Pen, coloured washes, watercolour technique, shaded, within nine-ruled pen and sepia and black wash border on wove paper (356 x 519)

Hand

George Bailey (1792-1860, pupil and Soane office assistant 1806-1837, curator 1837-1860) or George Allen Underwood (1793-1829, pupil 1807-1815) (both pupils recorded drawing views of Dulwich in the Day Book entry for 28 October 1811)

Watermark

Joseph Ruse T (sic)

Notes

The decision to move the Mausoleum to the centre of the almshouses on the west side of the Gallery was made following a meeting with the Master at the College. And is recorded in Soane's Note Book on 15 November 1811; 'wishes to have the Mausoleum on the other front as form[erly] proposed - alter entrance into sisters' apartment'.

The drawings also show differing fenestration at first floor level and variant designs for the decoration above the cornice. Clerestory windows are introduced to light the Gallery instead of skylights. The false doors of the Mausoleum are now crowned with acroteria in the form of sarcophagi, ancient stone coffins, corresponding with the three sarcophagi inside the burial chamber. The foundations of the new Gallery were laid on 19 October 1811 but alterations and additions to the design continued to be made during construction.

Literature

F. Nevola, Soane's favourite subject: the story of Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2000, pp. 62 & 185

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.

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