[31-34] Working drawings for the library, 1826 (4)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: Palace of Westminster: designs for alterations and additions, 1793-1828 (499)
    - London: House of Commons, Palace of Westminster: unexecuted designs for a new House of Commons, 1825-1833 (29) and executed design for a library and committee rooms, 1825-1830 (53)
      - London: House of Commons, Palace of Westminster: designs and executed design for library and committee rooms, 1825-1830 (53)

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Reference number

SM (31) 51/5/20 (32) 51/5/19 (33) 51/5/18 (34) 51/5/21

Purpose

[31-34] Working drawings for the library, 1826 (4)

Aspect

31 Plan and wall elevations of the New Library
32 Details for the bay window and adjoining windows
33 Wall elevation with library shelves (verso) rough ? window details
34 Plan for a vaulted ceiling with wall elevations

Scale

(31) bar scale of 3/5 inch to 1 foot (32) bar scale of ½ inch to 1 foot and full size (33) to a scale (34) to a scale

Inscribed

31 as above, House of Commons, (pencil) Rollers (twice) and (pen and pencil) dimensions given
32 House of Commons / New Library and (pencil) dimensions
33 House of Commons / New Library, labelled A, B, Equal (3 times) and dimenisions given
34 as above, (Soane) Principal Mo[ulding] : 3 / Intermediate ... 2¼, moulded ribs labelled 3, 2¼, 2 1/3 and 6

Signed and dated

(31, 32) 1826 (33) House of Commons / August 4 1826 (34) L.I.F. / 7 dec^r1826

Medium and dimensions

(31) Pen, burnt umber and sepia washes, pencil, pricked for transfer on wove paper (471 x 700) (32) pen, burnt umber, yellow and sepia washes, pencil, pricked for transfer on wove paper (505/309 x 758) (33) pen, burnt umber and yellow washes on wove paper with two fold marks (225 x 492) (34) pen, pink and blue washes, on wove paper with one torn fold mark having an old small paper repair (530 x 751)

Hand

Soane office

Watermark

(31, 32) Smith & Allnutt 1823 (34) J Whatman 1825

Notes

These drawing are rather worn and thus probably record the built design. Drawing 31 shows the library with dotted lines indicating the treatment of the ceiling. The two long wall elevations have each a chimneypiece in the centre flanked by two windows and bookcases. One of the end walls has an oriel window with a narrow window on each side and the other has a doorway with 'Rollers' on each side. Drawing 32 details the oriel window and wall. Drawing 33 details the fitted book shelves that differ dimensionally from those shown on drawing 31. Drawing 34 has a three-bay, shallow vaulted ceiling with three floreated bosses. The walls are less bare than in drawing 31 so that the windows have double segmental mouldings over them linked by a single moulding that reflects the minimally arched heads of the windows.
The building programme was for completion by 1 February 1827 and the work appears to have been executed on time. (King's Works, VI, p.529)
By 1830, the library had outgrown itself again and another select committee was set up to resolve the problem.

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).