[53-54] Sketch perspective, September 1800 and design for re-modelling of the Court of Requests, 1808 (2)

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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 Lords, Palace of Westminster: unofficial (mostly domed) designs, 1793 - May 1794 and after February 1795 (58)

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Reference number

SM (53) volume 69/80 (54) P284 (was XP17) (North Drawing Room)

Purpose

[53-54] Sketch perspective, September 1800 and design for re-modelling of the Court of Requests, 1808 (2)

Aspect

53 Sketch interior perspective 54 Finished interior perspective

Inscribed

(53) House of Lords (54) Design for new House of Lords (Sir John Soane 1794), Part of the proposed design for the new House of Lords / This view was made from the drawings designed in obedience to an order of a committee of the House / of Lords and officially submitted to and honored with the approbation of His Majesty / As Westminster Abbey is already crowded with sculpture it was submitted that this room of CXX feet in length and XL feet in / breadth together with an adjoining room of large dimensions - the immediate entrance into the House of Lords as also the Doric Hall be public entrances / the Corridor of Communication nearly CCL feet in length - the Robing Room for His Majesty - the Great Committee Room - and the other principal rooms / and avenues should be decorated from time to time with statues and busts of illustrious men and also with / basso relievos, inscriptions and paintings descriptive of their great actions and public virtues thereby forming / a public depot of the arts calculated to call forth the genius, energy and exertions of the painter and sculptor / (signed) John Soane Archt 1808

Signed and dated

(53) Sep 1800
(54) John Soane Archt 1808
(58) Sep 1800
(59) John Soane Arch^t 1808

Medium and dimensions

(53) Pen, warm sepia, raw umber and blue washes on laid paper in album with blue, pink and yellow marbled boards (368 x 234) (54) pen and coloured washes (890 x 250 approximately) framed

Hand

(53) Joseph Michael Gandy (1771-1843, assistant January 1798-March 1801) (54) Gandy with figures by another ? Henry Hake Seward (1778-1848, pupil and assistant May 1794-September 1808)

Watermark

(53) fleur-de-lis with crowned cartouche and below, GR

Notes

The design shows a hall with vaulted ceiling, large semicircular windows and 'primitive' Doric columns without bases and fluted in the upper two-thirds of the shaft. The capitals each support a dosseret or detached section of an entablature. The Court of Requests usually appears in plans as a blank space though some drawings (domeless sequence: drawings 10-13, 21,22) show it used as the new House of Commons. A record drawing that is a copy (without staffage) of drawing 54 (Domeless sequence: drawing 122) is inscribed 'Court of Requests'. By 1808 Soane was quite grandiloquent in his room labels, thus: 'Doric Hall', 'Corridor of Communication' and 'Great Committee Room'.

Literature. S.Sawyer, Soane at Westminster, PhD thesis Columbia University, 1999, p.228

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