Designs for minor alterations, including partitions in the library, April 1813 (3)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
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  - London: Buckingham House, 91 Pall Mall: (executed) house for 1st Marquess of Buckingham, 1790-1793, (executed) alterations to the library, 1794, and (executed) alterations on the ground and first floors, 1813 (52)

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Reference number

SM (50) 33/1/21 (51) 33/1/20 (52) 33/1/19

Purpose

Designs for minor alterations, including partitions in the library, April 1813 (3)

Aspect

50 Part-Plan of the Hall Floor 51 Part-ground floor plan 52 Part-first floor plan

Scale

(50-52) bar scale of 1/4 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

50 as above, The Marquiss of Buckingham, These Windows to open down to the floor, 4:0, The Library, Columns & Pilasters from the Library 51 The Marquiss of Buckingham, plan labelled (some in upper case): Great Staircase, Part of the Dining Room, Library, Bookcase (six times), Qy / Bookcase (twice), Dressing Room, Powdering / Closet / 6:6 by 13:3, Bed Chamber, These windows to open dow to the Floor, Bed, Common Staircase, (pencil) Watercloset 52 The Marquiss of Buckingham, plan labelled (upper case) Great Staircase, Part of the / Drawing Room, Drawing Room, The Marchioness of / Buckingham's Room / 34 ft by 20 ft, Closet, Common / Staircase

Signed and dated

(50) Lincolns Inn Fields April 21^st1813 (51) L.I. Fields April 1813 (52) L.I. Fields April 1813

Medium and dimensions

(50) Pencil, pen and black and red washes on laid paper (667 x 409) (51) pencil, pen and grey, black and pink washes, within five-ruled and wash border on wove paper (588 x 420) (52) pencil, pen and grey and pink washes, within triple-ruled and wash border on wove paper (580 x 410)

Hand

(50) attributed to George Allen Underwood (1794-1829, assistant 1807-1815) (51-52) Soane office

Watermark

(50) Phipps & Son 1809 and fleur-de-lis within crowned cartouche with ornate (?)PF below

Notes

Alterations to the house were commisisoned in 1813, the last year of the Marquess's life. Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (1776-1839), later 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, inherited the house upon his father's death but entries in Soane's journals and ledgers name the 1st Marquess as client for the 1813-14 alterations. Years later, the Duke approached Soane for a substantial loan, wherein Soane offered to purchase part of the Duke's collection.

Alterations to the first floor introduce a room for the Marchioness at the south-east corner, with one chimney-piece removed to include a direct communication into the adjoining drawing room. Partitions on the north wall narrow the Marchioness's room so that the chimney-piece is centred on the east wall.

Alterations to the ground floor are shown on drawings 50 and 51. The former library is used as a bedroom, and an alcove on the north wall has been removed (see drawing 38 for the original room design). Soane's alterations, in pink wash, show the west alcove partitioned off to provide for a powdering closet.

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).