Welcome

Welcome to the website of the house and Museum of Sir John Soane, R.A., architect "the best house-museum in the world".

Soane was born in 1753, the son of a bricklayer, and died after a long and distinguished career, in 1837. 

Soane designed this house to live in, but also as a setting for his antiquities and his works of art. After the death of his wife (1815), he lived here alone, constantly adding to and rearranging his collections. Having been deeply disappointed by the conduct of his two sons, one of whom survived him, he determined to establish the house as a museum to which ‘amateurs and students’ should have access.

Piranesi's Paestum

Master Drawings Uncovered.

15 February - 18 May 2013

Three of Soane's collection of Piranesi sketches
Photos: Ardon Bar Hama

Housed in the newly opened Exhibition Gallery at the Soane Museum, this fabulous exhibition reunites for the first time the seventeen sketches that form the last great project of the brilliant eighteenth century artist Giovanni Batista Piranesi, which were the preparatory work for the posthumously published Différentes Vues de Pesto.  Comprising fifteen works from Soane's own collection, and loans from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, this exhibition sheds new light on the considerable impact of his work on eighteenth century architectural taste.

Follow the link to find out more>>.

John Wilton-Ely's book accompanying the Exhibition, Piranesi, Paestum & Soane, is available from the Museum shop.