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Signed and dated
- 1689
Main Year - 1690-94
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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.
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).
Contents of Thirteen designs for tall and richly sculpted chimney-pieces, in a variety of wash colours; probably for principal state rooms
- [1] Design for a chimney-piece with winged putti and a basket of flowers on the fire surround and a tall overmantel with a cresting of intertwined wreaths and a long drop of fruit and flowers
- [2] Design for a chimney-piece, with a bust of Charles I over the fire surround, and a tall overmantel portrait frame with a cresting of a cross of St George in a garter, with putti, palm fronds, and a long drop of flowers
- [3] Design for chimney-piece with a tall obelisk draped with wreaths at the side of the overmantel and a putto leaning against a vase on a pedestal in the centre of the mantel shelf
- [4] Design for a chimney-piece with a tall, arched overmantel panel containing a sketch of a standing figure, bordered by a drapery swag, and with a vase and a crowned St George medallion on the mantel shelf
- [5] Design for a chimney-piece with a large vase of flowers in the arched overmantel panel, vases on the mantel shelf, and a pair of winged cherub heads in the fire surround
- [6] Design for a chimney-piece with a trophy of arms in an overmantel niche, flanked by a tall obelisk, garlanded with ribbons, fruit and flowers, and held by two climbing putti; and with a WM monogram in the frieze
- [7] Design for a chimney-piece with a large blue vase beneath a hung drapery relief panel bearing a garter star, and surmounted by a trophy of crowns and trumpets
- [8] Design for a chimney-piece with a vase at each end of the mantel shelf, a pair of doves in the centre, and an overmantel frame bordered by sprays of fruit, flowers and fronds
- [9] Design for a chimney-piece with two large cherubs on the mantel shelf holding a swag of flowers, and an overmantel frame bordered by acanthus, fruit and flowers, and with a roundel in the cresting
- [10] Design for a chimney-piece with a large, garlanded urn, resting on a plinth and pedestal, above a plain fire surround
- [11] Design for a chimney-piece with a herm figure in the fire surround and putti on the mantel shelf, holding a blank cartouche beneath a portrait frame bordered by suspended fruit and flowers
- [12] Design for a chimney-piece with alternatives, the left side of the fire surround with a term figure and a vase, and the right side with a plain pilaster and bust
- [13] Design for a chimney-piece with a reclining cherub on the mantel shelf, beneath a drapery canopy suspended from ribbons entwined with a recorder, sheet music and flowers, and the fire surround with two billing doves in the frieze panel