Scale
(85) to a scale (86) bar scale of 15/16 inch to 1 foot
Inscribed
85 as above, labelled: The Bank of England, Messrs Thelusson & Co, London Dock Company
86 as above, labelled: The Bank of England, A (twice), B, C, E, F, A is 1½ before B / C sits back from / A 6 In / E is ½ Inch before F and some dimensions given
Signed and dated
- (85) 1810 (86) Sepr 16 1810
Medium and dimensions
(85) Pen, sepia and burnt Sienna washes, (verso) pen, pricked for transfer on wove paper with two fold marks (600 x 452) (86) pen, brown pen, sepia and yellow washes, pricked for transfer on stout laid paper (584 x 458)
Hand
(85) Soane office (86) Soane
Watermark
(85) SH
Notes
The entrances to the counting houses of the London Dock Company (No. 1) and Thellusson, Nephew & Co. (No. 2) were arranged around a small courtyard, open at one end (west) to Meeting House Court (q.v. drawings 67-68). The elevation drawing (86) shows a frontage around 12 feet wide and 15½ feet high. A central doorway is flanked by rectangular niches raised on socles. The attic consists of two pedestals supporting antefixes and plinths with canopy domed caps, reminiscent of the gated entrance at Pitzhanger and the later Soane monument. The plinth on the right is decorated with a caduceus (winged staff) motif, a symbol associated with Mercury, the Roman god of merchants and used frequently by Soane at the Bank of England. The whole entrance has banded rustication which gives the impression of robustness and echoes the screen walls of the Bank of England.
The initial design on drawing 86 has been partly scratched out and re-drawn with alterations in brown pen by Soane.
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural,
design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for
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it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance
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