Design for a chimney-piece, 9 July 1790

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Town houses
  - Norwich, Norfolk: Surrey Street, alterations for John Patteson, 1790 (8)

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Reference number

SM (7) 81/2/37

Purpose

Design for a chimney-piece, 9 July 1790

Aspect

7 Elevation of Chimney Piece; (verso) detail of the jamb and lining

Scale

bar scale of 1/7 inch to 1 foot, approximately, and full size

Inscribed

as above, John Patteson Esq^re, The whole to be executed / in Veined Marble, slab, slip, slip, dimensions given, (pencil) 2'2; (verso) line of finish'd wall, depth, of, flutes

Signed and dated

Albion Place July 9^th1790

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, pen and grey and pink washes on laid paper with four fold marks (402 x 237)

Hand

attributed to John McDonnell (pupil 1786-91)

Notes

On 10 July 1790, Soane sent by post a chimney-piece design. This drawing was probably the same sheet sent to the workmen.

The chimney-piece is made of veined marble. It has a Vitruvian scroll motif on the frieze, with each scroll surrounding a rosette. The jambs have fluting between bead mouldings. The verso of the drawing shows the depth of the fluting, the bead mouldings, and lining.

The chimney-piece is the same design as a chimney-piece for the drawing room at Bentley Priory (see drawing 107, SM 81/1/16). The design drawing for the Bentley Priory chimney-piece has the date June 28 1790 cancelled, with April 13 1791 written beneath it. This is an indication that the drawing was re-used for Bentley Priory and it was originally made for Surrey Street.

Much of Soane's work at Surrey Street is altered but this chimney-piece and another are still extant (D. Stroud, p. 146).

Inscriptions on other chimney-piece designs indicate that they were considered for Mr Patteson's house: drawing 46 in Letton Hall scheme, SM 81/1/38; and drawing 10 in Cricket Lodge scheme, SM volume 43/3.

Literature

D. Stroud, Sir John Soane, architect, 1984, p. 146.

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.

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