Signed and dated
Medium and dimensions
Pen and watercolours (1325 x 925), framed
Hand
Joseph Michael Gandy ARA (1771 - 1843)
Notes
Joseph Michael Gandy's view of the Scala Regia from the vestibule at the end of the Royal Entrance was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823 (no. 974). It shows the richly-ornamented staircase of three flights with banded rustication, fluted Ionic columns, coffered barrel-vaulted ceilings and a central shallow dome with lantern. An entry in the RA Catalogue, Sir John Soane, Architect: Master of Space and Light, 1999, p. 263, says: 'This is the primary view of Soane's Scala Regia built in 1822-23. In the foreground is the lobby he created within the last bay of Wyatt's existing arcade. The dramatic top-lighting and combination of Gothic and Neoclassical forms signify the transition from one stylistic zone to the other and create the sublime affects [sic] of scale and light that he had long admired in the Gothic while maintaining a more rigorously Neoclassical vocabulary. To Bolton [Arthur, curator 1917-45], the Scala Regia was perhaps "the best of all Soane designs, and even if it was possibly somewhat gaudy in detail, in character with the taste of the last of the four Georges, it is undoubtedly a fine and characteristic composition" (Bolton 1924, p. 112).'
Literature
M. Richardson and M. Stevens, 'John Soane, Architect: Master of Space and Light', 1999, p. 263.
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
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
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it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance
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Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of
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