[71] Study for lantern dome and cross-vaults scheme

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Bank of England
  - Bank of England, City of London for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 1788-1834 (1356)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (431)
      - Bank Stock Office, 1791-1793 (73)
        George Dance's studies, c. November 1791-February 1792 (16)

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Reference number

SM volume 42/177

Purpose

[71] Study for lantern dome and cross-vaults scheme

Aspect

Rough upward perspectives and detail of pilaster capital with three flutes and a triple anthemion motif

Inscribed

p^l/ c^lk (twice, Principle Clerk)

Signed and dated

datable to 11 December 1791

Medium and dimensions

Brown pen and pencil on laid secretary paper with three fold marks (201 x 321)

Hand

George Dance (1741-1825)

Watermark

Britannia with spear, shield and olive branch in crowned roundel and a bell below, and part of W

Notes

The quick, pencil perspective looking towards one of the corner bays on this drawing shows high segmental arches beneath the lantern-domed crossing, a semi-circular arch leading from the centre-aisle into the corner, and a short semi-circular arch connecting the corner bay and side-arm. This design relates to the perspective in the middle of SM volume 42/171, but with the realisation that widening the crossing will result in segmental arches beneath the lantern dome.

Of all the Dance studies, this drawing comes closest to the executed design, not only in its articulation of plan and structure but also in its decoration. It is unclear, however, if Dance has here abandoned his other four-bay schemes in favour of the eventually realised three-bay plan.

The sketch on the drawing's right-hand side shows the top of the pilasters applied to the hall's various piers and responds (and seen in the larger perspective). It shows triple fluting and broad flat fillets, surmounted by (in pen) a stylised anthemion design for the cap, and a projecting cornice. In the executed hall, Soane adapted these flutes and filleting for the shafts while simplifying the capital, reducing the frieze in height, substituting a Greek key fret for the anthemion (though he would use the anthemion in the Consols Transfer Office, begun 1798) and omitting the cornice altogether.

Literature

D. Abramson, Building the Bank of England: money, architecture, society 1694-1942, 2005, p. 105

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).