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[1] Preliminary design for a bridge link, with Portalls, to connect Queen Mary's Closet with the Privy Garden and Water Gallery, dated September 1694
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Reference number
SM, volume 110/19
Purpose
[1] Preliminary design for a bridge link, with Portalls, to connect Queen Mary's Closet with the Privy Garden and Water Gallery, dated September 1694
Aspect
Elevation with plan
Scale
4 feet to 1 inch
Inscribed
In ink by Hawksmoor as title at top of sheet, The Bridg and Portalls by the Queens / Clossett at Hampton Court Sept. 1694; and by Dance at top right, Gd, and to right in C19 hand, (19)
Signed and dated
- September 1694
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink over graphite under-drawing, with graphite for plan; on laid paper, laid down; 285 x 449
Hand
Hawksmoor
Watermark
Strasbourg Bend; see Heawood, 145
Notes
The pencilled sketch plan above the elevation overlaps the left-hand end wall and is the probably an initial idea for the plan of the bridge-link structure. The proposal consists of an upwards extension of the 9-feet-high Privy Garden wall to carry a narrow walkway linked to the balcony of the Queen's Closet. The steps on the west side of the wall are in two flights of eight, finishing on the embankment walkway rather than the terrace level at ground level, 13 feet 9 inches below. The bridge link would have provided a new entrance to the Privy Garden from the Park, in the form of a segmental-arched opening flanked by fluted Doric three-quarter columns. The door on the left would have been blank and was included to balance the door beneath the Queen's Closet.
The sketch design is characteristic of Hawksmoor's mature drawing technique in the mid-1690s, especially in the use of wash on pencil outlines.
The sketch design is characteristic of Hawksmoor's mature drawing technique in the mid-1690s, especially in the use of wash on pencil outlines.
Literature
Wren Society, IV, pl. 21, top
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