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[2] Design made for presentation, 3 February 1785
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Reference number
SM 45/1/30
Purpose
[2] Design made for presentation, 3 February 1785
Aspect
2 Plan and four wall elevations/sections
Scale
bar scale of 1/5 in to 1 ft (approximately)
Inscribed
The Plan and Section of a Library / designed for / The Right Hon.ble the Lord Camelford
Signed and dated
- J Soane Archt.t, Margaret Street and Feb.y 3.d 1785
Medium and dimensions
Pen, sepia, light green, pale blue, burnt sienna, yellow and pink washes, shaded within black double-ruled and wash border on laid paper (440 x 567)
Hand
Robert Baldwin (fl.1782-1804) ?
Verso
Watermark
J Whatman, fleur-de-lis above cartouche with bar and below, ornate W
Notes
Approximately 50 feet long by 20 feet wide, the room has a plain, shallow barrel-vaulted ceiling. The long window wall has three round-arched French windows with a round-arched bookcase on either side flanked by Corinthian columns. Opposite, a chimney-piece with an Adamesque round-arched mirror above it, is flanked by a wide bookcase and then a round-arched one. One end wall has two doors and three gilt frames for pictures and the other has a single gilded frame. The colour scheme shows the walls as a light green (terre verte) with festoon blinds in a pinkish-brown material above each window. The frieze has bucrania and festoons against a pale pink background. Between the windows, and reflected in wall mirrors, a pair of candelabra are held aloft by draped female figures on strigilated pedestals. The room may relate to the larger of the three rooms marked 'library' on drawing 1 though the special access via the garden has been omitted.
Carefully made with, for example, each volume on the bookshelves individually delineated, the drawing is likely to have been made for presentation. The inscription is probably by Robert Baldwin and, in any case, not by Soane or, for example, George Dance. Dated 3 February 1785, it may have been one of 'the Plans' sent with a covering letter from Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford to Sir Joseph Banks (Honorary Secretary to the Society of Dilettanti) on 7 February 1785. (SM Priv.Corr.IV.P.2.1)
Carefully made with, for example, each volume on the bookshelves individually delineated, the drawing is likely to have been made for presentation. The inscription is probably by Robert Baldwin and, in any case, not by Soane or, for example, George Dance. Dated 3 February 1785, it may have been one of 'the Plans' sent with a covering letter from Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford to Sir Joseph Banks (Honorary Secretary to the Society of Dilettanti) on 7 February 1785. (SM Priv.Corr.IV.P.2.1)
Literature
P. du Prey, John Soane: the making of an architect, 1982, pp.237-44
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