[3] Preliminary design by George Dance, made before 18 March 1778

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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 volume 42/120

Purpose

[3] Preliminary design by George Dance, made before 18 March 1778

Aspect

Rough elevation of front with indication of single storey pavilion wings; alternative design for entrance with three semicircular arches, cut from the sheet and pasted as a flier over existing design with columns; plan of colonnade on a segmental plan with pavilion end; rough elevation of pavilion end; and very rough alternative part-elevation

Scale

to varying approximate scales

Medium and dimensions

Pen, wash, shaded, pencil, trace lines on secretary paper with three fold marks, two corners missing (193 x 321)

Hand

George Dance (1741-1825)

Verso

stuck down

Notes

Drawn freehand but over some ruled pencil lines and with washed shade and shading, it is difficult to visualise the plan from this elevation.

The design is compact with two full-height storeys rather than the one and a half floors of the final design. du Prey (op.cit) considers that this drawing was made by Soane before he left for Italy on 18 March 1778. And notes that the drawing 'technique here has great affinities with that used by George Dance in sketches, but with greater reliance on wash.' This cataloguer is confident that the drawing is by Dance.

Literature

P. du Prey, John Soane's architectural education 1753-80, 1977, pp.91-2

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).