It was very likely that these five designs were made by the younger Dance as part of a preliminary training under his father's supervision in the period between leaving St Paul's School and going to Italy. The choice of subjects and their execution is what might be expected from early exercises in design. The draughtsmanship is sometimes uncertain, particularly in the drawing of staircases and two of the designs, with naive pretension, are placed on illusionistic scrolling paper fastened by nails. The title of a 'Plan of a Design for a Temple' has ruled pencil guidelines and the carefully inscribed dimensions seem to be in a juvenile hand while other of the drawings are inscribed by Dance the Elder.

Of the 27 drawings (some for All Hallows church, 1765) in the album containing these five designs, most are by the younger Dance, five by his father and one by a surveyor.

In December 1758, four months before his eighteenth birthday, the young George left to study architecture in Italy, remaining there for six years. He was the youngest of five sons and it was expected that he would follow his father as an architect and succeed him as Clerk of the City Works. It is unlikely that he would have been sent off to Italy without some grounding in drawing and design and in the year or two before going abroad, he must have accompanied his father to the office in the Guildhall to observe the business of architecture and to try his hand at some theoretical exercises. His training in professional practice was completed when, on his return from Italy, he worked as his father's unpaid assistant from the end of 1764 to the older man's retirement early in 1768.