[56] Record drawing of the Court with colonnades on east and west sides and a triumphal arch motif to the south

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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)
      - Lothbury Court and surrounding offices, 1797-1801 (109)

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Reference number

SM volume 60/26

Purpose

[56] Record drawing of the Court with colonnades on east and west sides and a triumphal arch motif to the south

Aspect

Perspective as in SM 12/3/11 but without a railing between the columns on the east side, and with extra attic panel joining the antefixes which surmount the pilasters on the south side

Inscribed

(Bailey) Sketch of a Design for the "Lothbury Court", The Bank of England

Signed and dated

(Bailey) 1800

Hand

Soane office

Watermark

J Whatman 1794

Notes

This drawing shows the final composition for the Bullion Arch on the south side of Lothbury Court. Although ornamentation and proportions would be refined and embellished, this composition of columns and fenestration would remain. As opposed to the other variant designs, the raised columns each independently support an order and attic pilaster (as shown in SM volume 60/15, SM volume 60/16 and SM volume 60/11). The final version included figurative statues and other decoration, an addition to the attic, a wider entrance and narrower windows. These additions more closely allied the design with the fourth century Arch of Constantine. Designs for the gateway had always been variations on the triumphal arch, but this last iteration was most closely modelled on the Arch.

The entrance on Lothbury Street was a variation on the triumphal arch motif as well, but instead of receiving more decoration as its design developed (as in Lothbury Court) the arch became more pared down. The statues and friezes were discarded, resulting in a lighter and more unified enclosure. Such reductions are perhaps owed to George Dance, with whom Soane met for advice (see SM 10/1/33).

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).