Presentation drawing of the Triumphal Arch at the end of Downing Street, 1826

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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: Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, Whitehall & Downing Street: designs for new offices and scheme for the improvement of Downing Street, 1823-33 (284)
    - Designs for the new government buildings on Whitehall and the completion of Downing Street with a Triumphal Arch, December 1825-May 1833 (100)

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Reference number

SM (242) P88

Purpose

Presentation drawing of the Triumphal Arch at the end of Downing Street, 1826

Aspect

242 Perspective of Design for completing the new buildings in Downing Street with reduced plans and elevation

Inscribed

as above, Sir John Soane, Old Palace Yard, New Palace / Yard, Parliament Street, King Street, Whitehall, King Street, Records, State Paper / Office, Home Department, Downing Street, Downing Place, Privy Council / Office, Board / of / Trade, Home Office / --- / ------ / (illegible) Treasury

Signed and dated

1827 (see note)

Medium and dimensions

framed, not available

Hand

Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843)

Notes

Although the date given on the frame is '1827', drawing 242 was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826. The Catalogue of Exhibitors (A. Graves, 4 vols, 1970) describes the drawing as 'Plans, elevations, etc., for completing the south side of Downing Place, and connecting the same with the new Council Office, the Board of Trade, and the Treasury by a triumphal arch. This arch, decorated with statues of His Majesty, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Wellington, the battle of Waterloo in basso-relievo, and other appropriate sculpture, is intended to perpetuate the military glory and invincible valour of Great Britain. The arch at the end of Downing Place, decorated with statues of his late Majesty, Lord Howard of Effingham, and Lord Nelson, with the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the Battle of Trafalgar represented in basso-relievo, is intended to record the glorious and ever memorable atchievements of the British Navy. Downing Place, thus enlarged and enriched with national monuments, commemorative of the splendid successes of the British arms by sea and land, and containing likewise some of the principal public offices and the official residences of several of the great Officers of State, would form a suitable approach to the House of Lords from the new Palace in St James's Park whenever his Majesty should be graciously pleased to open the Session of Parliament in his Royal Person, and the procession would be no longer compelled, as at present, to pass under the low arches and gloomy vaultings of the Horse Guards. "Mihi turpe relinqui est".'

Level

Drawing

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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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