Frances Sands - Architectural Drawings: Hidden Masterpieces from Sir John Soanes Museum

ARCHITECTURAL
DRAWINGS

Hidden Masterpieces from
Sir John Soanes Museum

After Federico Zuccaro, study of wall decoration, a pope receiving homage in Rome, from the Margaret Chinnery Album, sixteenth century, SM volume 114/9. Photograph: Ardon Bar-Hama.

Hidden Masterpieces from
Sir John Soanes Museum

Frances Sands

Office of Sir John Soane, RA lecture drawing, the Ionic orders set in a landscape, as designed by the Ten Masters in Frarts Parallle, 180619, SM 23/5/2. Photograph: Ardon Bar-Hama.

I n the very first of his Royal Academy Lectures as Professor of Architecture, John Soane stressed the importance of drawing as an essential attribute for the young architect, together with a mastery of mathematics, geometry and hydraulics. Indeed, Soanes own instruction under Thomas Sandby and George Dance reinforced the centrality of drawing as a means of expressing new ideas and mastering the intricacies of the great architectural traditions of the past, and such ideas formed the basis of his collections, both of architectural drawings and of plaster casts replicating the elements of architecture to scale.

As Soanes collecting habits grew and matured, his interests broadened to include a conspectus of building styles, and the 30,000 architectural drawings in the possession of his museum constitute the greater part of his legacy to the nation. Scholars and students still come to Lincolns Inn Fields to learn and be inspired by his collection, and it is our hope that this book will give a flavour of that legacy to those unable to visit Sir John Soanes Museum. I am grateful to Dr Frances Sands, Curator of Drawings and Books, and to all my curatorial colleagues for their efforts in the production of such a handsome and scholarly book, one in which John Soane himself would have taken great pleasure and pride.

Bruce Boucher, Deborah Loeb Brice Director

Sir John Soanes Museum

December 2019

Office of Sir John Soane, RA lecture drawing, Sir William Chamberss House of Confucius at Kew Gardens, Richmond, 180619, SM 17/5/9. Photograph: Geremy Butler.

A visit to Sir John Soanes Museum in Lincolns Inn Fields is surely one of the great cultural and aesthetic pleasures in life, and certainly an essential item on any London tourists itinerary. The creation of Sir John Soane (17531837), one of Britains finest architects, collectors and teachers, in this museum we find the extraordinary survival of a private Georgian house-museum-turned-national-collection.

Born in 1753 in Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, John Soan (later Soane) was the son of a bricklayer. The loss of his father in 1767, when Soane was only 14 years old, prompted his removal from Bakers School in Reading, upon which he followed in his father and older brothers footsteps and began a career as a bricklayer. Most fortunately for the young Soane, while working as a bricklayer in 1768, an architects assistant and family acquaintance, James Peacock, noticed Soanes talents as a draughtsman and arranged for him to enter into an architectural apprenticeship in the office of the much-admired George Dance the Younger (17411825). Three years later, aged 18, Soane was accepted as a student of architecture at the RA, affording him access to their library, lecture series and, most importantly of all, entitling him to submit one of his own drawings to the architecture category of the RA annual competition. In 1776, when Soane was only 23 years old, he won the RA gold medal for architecture with a design for a monumental bridge to cross the River Thames. His success at the RA enabled Soane through the good offices of Sir William Chambers (172296) to meet King George III and resulted in his nomination for a travelling studentship. This was a scholarship for three years, funded by a royal pension and worth 60 per annum plus expenses of 30 each way; the idea being that the recipient should use the money to undertake a Grand Tour of Europe for the benefit of their education. In 1778 Soane travelled via France to Italy where he busied himself in acquiring a thorough knowledge of the classical tradition of architecture, making drawings of the antique ruins that he encountered and forging contacts with other British grand tourists who would later become his patrons. The importance of Soanes Grand Tour to his development as an architect was never lost on him, and he noted the date of 18 March in his diary the day he had ventured forth in 1778 almost every year for the rest of his life.