Designs for the elevations, May 1831 (5)

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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: New State Paper Office, Duke Street, Westminster, 1829-34 (207)

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Reference number

SM (112) 82/1/52 (113) 82/1/54 (114) 82/1/53 (115) 82/1/55 (116) 82/1/58

Purpose

Designs for the elevations, May 1831 (5)

Aspect

112 Elevation of the east front 113 Elevation of the north front 114 Elevation of the west front 115 Elevation of the south front 116 Part elevation and section through the rear (north) of the building looking west

Scale

(112-116) bar scales of 2/9 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

112 labelled (in Soane's hand): See parts at large / 27 & 29 May, Fascia / finished / on / 14 June, Basement, Ground Floor, First Floor, Attic Story, Entab 4.16.0 / per foot run / too expansion / Cornice &c reduced / See 16 June and some dimensions given 114 labelled: 12'0'', 17'5'', 15'2'', 9'5'' 115 (in Soane's hand) 4 Course finished / Saturday / 28 May 1831, 4'6'' (5 times) 116 labelled (in Soane's hand): Arch[itrave] to project / 2¼ (twice), Arch[itrave] to / project 1½ (twice), 3 ---- (illegible) In re Arch, (pencil) Books (3 times), Case and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

May 1831
(113, 114) 9^th May 1831

Medium and dimensions

(112-115) Pen, pencil, sepia, pink and black washes, pricked for transfer on wove paper (499 x 534, 508 x 541, 505 x 541, 473 x 525) (116) pen, sepia, pink, black, blue and yellow washes, pricked for transfer on wove paper (512 x 550)

Hand

(112-115) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837) (116) Soane office

Watermark

(112, 114) Smith & Allnutt 1823 (113, 116) Smith [& Allnutt]

Notes

Judging by the alternative treatments on drawings 112-115 it seems as though Soane had not settled on a design for the eaves or the chimney stacks by May 1831. The design for the main entrance on drawing 112 is a slight variation on the reduced 'Vignolan' doorway shown on drawing 66. The south elevation (drawing 115) has an arrangement of three windows that are linked by an entablature, the outer two being crowned with small pediments with acroteria. A similar arrangement, without the acroteria and with Greek fret moulding underneath the windows was executed (q.v. drawing 126). The internal arrangement of the flues is shown in pink wash. The cross-section on drawing 116 shows the brick arches that Soane built as a fire-proofing measure. The arches were constructed of hollow bricks. A drawing was made for one of Soane's Royal Academy lectures showing one of the brick arches in section (SM 26/6/1, not yet catalogued).

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).