Tracing of design

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- 'Original Sketches / Miscellaneous / Architectural / Subjects': album with 195 drawings by Soane, Dance, Holland and others, dated c.1757 to 1818 (volume 42)
  - Volume 42/38: unidentified hand: Gothic throne and canopy

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Reference number

SM volume 42/38

Purpose

Tracing of design

Aspect

Half-plan and half-elevation of a throne (or throne-like chair) and canopy on a three-step dais in a Gothic style employing crocketed gables, trefoil arches and finials

Scale

bar scale equivalent of 7/8 in to 1 ft

Medium and dimensions

Pen on tracing paper (322 x 200)

Hand

unidentified (? same hand as 42/70)

Notes

The seat, arms and legs of the chair are of standard 18th century-design but the back (with blank heraldic shields) and canopy are in a rather exuberant Gothic style that might suggest a bishop's throne. Traced designs can often be associated with Soane's time as an assistant in Henry Holland's office (1772-8). The only Gothic commission during that period was the reconstruction of Cardiff Castle in a Gothic style for Lord Mount Stuart, 1777-8 (Colvin, 1995). Later reconstruction has removed all internal traces of Holland's work (D.Stroud, Henry Holland, 1966, p.57). The only church work that Holland carried out was at St Michael's, Chart Sutton in Kent, 1779-82, after it was struck by lightning and gutted, save for the tower. Holland's work was virtually all removed in a mid-19th century restoration (D.Stroud, Henry Holland, 1966, p.58).

Literature

D.Stroud, Henry Holland, 1966, pp.57-8

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).