Soane office, London, design for a Royal Palace, 1821: design perspective of the portico with the carriage entrance on an inclined plane.

This Gandy watercolour of Soane's design for a new Royal Palace was exhibited at the R.A. in 1827, no. 954. It remains framed, in a style of frame seemingly designed by Soane for exhibition works. In the earliest Museum inventories of 1837 it is described using the exact title (as above) of the 1827 RA catalogue entry. When it was unframed in 1999 it was found to have a label on the original backboard 'John Soane RA / Lincoln's Inn Fields / No. 3' - such labels were put on works to be exhibited before they were transported to Somerset House for the annual RA exhibition.

Soane exhibited three watercolours of his design for a Royal Palace in 1827, carefully chosen to provide the public with a complete idea of his proposal. One of the other drawings (RA 1827 no. 911) was SM P343: in the 1837 Soane Museum inventories P343 is linked specifically to this watercolour being described as 'View in the Portico with the principal Entrance, being part of a Design for a Royal Palace. part of the Design represented in Drawing No. 260'. The other 1827 Royal Palace exhibit (RA 1827 no.977) was a 'General view' of the scheme, probably SM P93.

John Soane Architect: Master of Space and Light, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 11 September - 3 December 1999; Centro Palladio, Vicenza, April - August 2000; Hôtel de Rohan, Paris, January - April 2001; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 16 May - 3 September 2001; Real Academia des Bellas Artes, Madrid, October - December 2001
Soane's Magician: The Tragic Genius of Joseph Michael Gandy, Sir John Soane's Museum, London, 31 March - 12 August 2006

P343, same scheme
P93, same scheme
P260, same scheme
P386, same scheme