[2] Design for a circular chamber, 70 feet in diameter

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Soane's architectural education: Royal Academy and Italy including measured drawings: 1770-1780
  - Soane's architectural education including theoretical designs made for the Royal Academy Schools and for exhibition at the Royal Academy, 1770-80, and in Italy, 1778-80
    - Preliminary designs, some by George Dance, final design exhibited at the Royal Academy, record drawing, and perspectives by J.M.Gandy and George Bailey, for a British Senate House 1778-1779 and later (16)

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Reference number

SM 45/1/12

Purpose

[2] Design for a circular chamber, 70 feet in diameter

Aspect

Plan, not finished, marked 70 feet diam^r; (verso, pencil) rough elevation of a domed, well colonnaded building of three storeys, close to the rough elevation catalogued above (recto of SM 45/1/9) both to an octagonal plan

Scale

to a scale (recto)

Inscribed

as above

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, grey wash, trace lines, red sealing wax on two corners of verso, on laid paper (371 x 544)

Hand

Soane (or possibly George Dance)

Watermark

J Whatman

Notes

Previously catalogued as a 'Design for a domed rotunda' (see Concise Catalogue) and filed with a group of 'Early sketches by Soane, in his own hand, of Italian buildings, designs made as a student before the Italian trip, designs made in Italy or on his return, 1774-85' the drawing seems to relate to the British Senate House scheme see, for example, SM volume 42/172 recto where there is a quite similar circular chamber.

The plan is on a single axis with two double-apsed ante-rooms with a double column screen at each side, flanking the circular chamber. It owes a great deal to George Dance's competition design for a public gallery made for the Parma Academy in 1763 and his treatment of the 'Gran Sale d'ingresso' with their ante-rooms (see J.Lever, Catalogue of the drawings of George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) ... from the collection of Sir John Soane's Museum, 2003, [17].4). Dance also used the idea for his ballroom at Cranbury Park, Hampshire, c.1780. The drawing might have been made by Dance.

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