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Home > Newsletter 8


SIR JOHN SOANE'S MUSEUM NEWSLETTER
NO.8 - AUTUMN 2003


A Letter from the Curator

Soane's birthday week, which begins on 8 September, will soon be upon us and we will be celebrating with five different displays of his 'hidden' collections in our Research Library. Included in one of them will be two drawings by the leading French architect during the Napoleonic period, Charles Percier, which were given to Soane on his 81st birthday on 10 September 1834 by Flaxman's sister-in-law, Maria Denman. One wonders what sorts of presents architects receive today - probably books on Herzog and De Meuron, Percier's equivalents.
Meanwhile the second half of the year is still very much dominated by our restoration of the Three Courtyards and all its discoveries, which Helen Dorey describes, as well as by our planning and fund-raising for No.14 Lincoln's Inn Fields. There are also other good things. The BBC is working on a film on Soane for their 'Imagine' series, probably to be shown in November; Pell Wall has been sold to new owners who intend to complete the restoration of the house and Piercefield, which has been in a state of calamitous ruin for many years, is for sale. But, unlike buildings by Robert Adam which seem comparatively secure in terms of protection, Soane's architecture is still vulnerable. We are particularly concerned at present about proposals to build a group of developer's houses around the great walled Kitchen Garden at Tyringham in Buckinghamshire. Please do write to the planners to object.

Tim Knox

'Bob the Roman': Heroic Antiquity & the Architecture of Robert Adam

27 June - 27 September 2003

Sponsored by Howard de Walden Estates Limited

The title of the current Soane exhibition has raised a few eyebrows. It is actually an example of eighteenth-century joie de vivre taken from one of Adam's letters home during his stay in Rome in the 1750s. Writing to his family, he quipped that he had become so immersed in the cultural life of the city he would be known on his return to England as 'Bob the Roman'. The exhibition itself has also raised eyebrows, mostly out of sheer amazement at the scale of many of the drawings on display - including a 9ft long design for a fantasy palace (detail below) - and delight at the novelty and heroic vision of the architect's invention.
Robert Adam (1728-92), in partnership with his brother James, set up one of the largest and most important architectural practices of the eighteenth century. The 'Adam style', characterised by delicate neo-antique ornament, is now synonymous with the refinement and elegance of this period. 'Bob the Roman', however, was a different person - a bold admirer of the monumental qualities of antique architecture and the product of a three-and-a-quarter year stay in Italy prior to the setting up of his London practice. This exhibition, curated by Professor Alistair Rowan, explores the role of the Italian experience in the shaping of Robert Adam's architectural mind. It was here that he found the 'the true, the simple and the grand' - qualities he strove to restore to the architecture of his own age.

The exhibition includes many grand Adam projects inspired by antiquity such as the Bath Assembly Rooms, the Theatre Royal in London and his speculative scheme for fashionable housing at the Adelphi in London. It also explores Adam's enduring fascination with centrally-planned structures - architecture 'in the round' - and how this related to his experience of antique and Renaissance architecture in Italy.

The exhibition and the accompanying colour catalogue have been generously sponsored by Howard de Walden Estates Limited, the grand landlord to the most important surviving group of Adam houses in England, which include Portland Place, Mansfield Street and Chandos House, which will be fully restored this year. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see how this project is advancing in a regularly updated section containing photographs of the work in progress.

Alistair Rowan is lecturing on Renaissance Ideals in Adam Architecture on Monday 22 September 2003, see Forthcoming Events for details.

News on Soane Buildings

Another planning application at Tyringham

After a somewhat chequered career as a health clinic the Museum welcomed the news that Tyringham in Buckinghamshire was to revert to being a house. Sadly the initial planning application has been followed by others, each less welcome than the last. The Stables have been converted into a house, and now an application has been received by the local authority, Milton Keynes, for a development of nine new houses. These are to be sited in part of the eighteenth- century pleasure grounds which the Tyringham Landscape Conservation Plan says is both important and capable of restoration.

Tyringham is now, after the loss of Cricket St Thomas to Warner Hotels, the finest surviving estate group by Sir John Soane. It is set within a Grade II listed landscape. To create a suburban street within the environs of the house compromises both the house and the landscape.

The Museum has objected most strongly. You too may wish to write to Michael Ryan, Department of Planning Services, Milton Keynes Council, PO Box 125, Civic Offices, 1 Saxon Gate East, Milton Keynes MK9 3ZJ.

Update on the Restoration of the Three Courtyards

Works began in the Three Courtyards in February 2003 and the main contract with EllmerConstruction has now been running for six months. This period has been dominated by opening up works which have included the demolition of the public lavatories inserted into Soane's Rear Kitchen in 1971, the removal of James Wild's roof-light and window in the Flaxman Recess and the removal of the No. 13 boiler. Much excavation work has also been carried out to allow for the repair of below ground drainage systems and for the re-erection of Soane's pasticcio in the Monument Court.

Exciting discoveries have been made in the process. Early on in the excavation works in the Monument Court it became clear that the pasticcio had been constructed on top of a brick well shaft, perhaps dating back to the previous house on the site. The eventual instability of the pasticcio, which led to its being dismantled in 1896, was almost certainly caused by this and, in particular, by the fact that the column was not placed exactly over the shaft but was slightly to one side, built up on top of large stone slabs laid about a foot beneath the level of the paving of the yard, over the top of the shaft.

Other discoveries have also been made in the Monument Court. During the excavations a small lime mortar pile was discovered, used by Soane to support the corner of a recess which briefly extended into the Courtyard from the Basement Ante-Room window in the 1820s. This is vital evidence that the recess, shown on many draw-ings of 1825-26, was actually built. As part of the restoration of the Monument Court we will be putting back an external gas lantern on the window sill of the upper north window - put there by Soane to light the north side of the pasticcio romantically at night. The removal of paint from the sill has revealed the pattern of the fixings for this lantern, still there beneath later repairs.

During the internal works a large number of the stone flags of the original rear kitchen floor have been found beneath later floor coverings and we have been able to see the construction of these floors, which are hollow, with the joints of each stone supported from beneath by small brick walls. Many of Soane's stone drains and lead pipes have been revealed and have been carefully protected and kept in place. Beneath one of the slabs of the rear kitchen floor the builders found a neat pile of discarded animal bones - cow, chicken and pig. The detritus of Soane's own builders, in the form of broken clay pipes, has cropped up in all parts of the site.

The latest discoveries have come in the first two weeks of August during works to the roof of the passage between the Monument Court and Monk's Yard in the former No. 13 boiler house. Here, a view of 1825 indicated that there was no roof but instead an opening, allowing dramatic views down from the Dressing Room above. Opening-up works have revealed the cement infill to this hole and surviving parts of the original coping. The infill has now been removed and for the first time for well over a century the effect of the aperture can be seen. Over what was Soane's own boiler house (on the north side of this passage) something even more surprising has been uncovered: a circular hole in the stone slab surrounded by a lead upstand. This seems to have been a rooflight, not shown on any drawings or in any watercolour views and it is our intention to reinstate it.

Work has now begun on the concrete foundation for the pasticcio, with our structural engineer in regular attendance: the first bits of steelwork, which will support the column from within, are also now in place. The carving of the 'Tivoli' capital that will form the centrepiece of the reconstructed column has begun, with the making of clay models, and the blocks of stone have been selected in the quarries at Portland. All this has followed a long period of research carried out by Julian Harrap, Marcus Chantrey and Lyall Thow into all aspects of 'Tivoli' capitals. This has involved them in a detailed study of measured drawings and surveys of the original Roman temple by Francesco Piranesi and George Dance (amongst others) as well as a Sunday spent in a cherry-picker examining and measuring capitals on the Threadneedle Street façade of the Bank of England. Comparing these with the surviving Tivoli capital which is part of 'Fanny's tomb' in the Monk's Yard and Soane's measured drawing for the pasticcio has proved that the capital used in the pasticcio was larger and more refined than that used in the Monk's Yard.

Over the next six months the project will move towards completion: the Rear Kitchen will take shape along with the new small bookshop within the space alongside (originally the Butler's Pantry), works of art in the Monument Court will be restored, the pebble and bottle top paving in the Monk's Yard will be repaired and a new section laid through the passage between the two courtyards, the Flaxman Recess will be reinstated in its original form and, finally, the pasticcio will be erected, probably some time in very early January 2004.

Helen Dorey

Supporting the Museum

The Museum is fortunate to receive a grant from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. This grant covers the core, basic running costs of the Museum and enables the Museum to be free to the public. However, this grant does not extend to covering the costs of all the Museum's other programmes including exhibitions, education and conservation. Nor does it cover the cost of major capital expenditure; this is why it is necessary for the Museum to fundraise and to ask for help from its supporters.

Since the last edition of this newsletter, the Museum has received a number of generous grants including those from the Garfield Weston Foundation, the PF Charitable Trust and the DCMS/ Wolfson Foundation Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund. Our thanks go to these and other organisations and individuals who have helped the Museum progress towards its targets for the funding of the Three Courtyards Project and the restoration of No.14.
Although we are now able to go ahead with the first phase of work on No.14 in early 2004, there is still £300,000 to raise before the Museum can complete the work on the house and provide for the extra running costs involved in the running of the Education Centre and the Adam Study Centre.

Donations are an important source of income to the Museum; our 90,000 visitors give approximately £30,000 each year via the collecting box in the Front Hall. Donations of all sizes are welcome and can be made at any time. If you would prefer to give help towards a specific item, e.g. the conservation of one of Soane's books or the restoration of one of the original carpets, then this is possible. All donations will be personally acknowledged and, unless anonymity is preferred, donors will also be publicly recognized and thanked.
Similarly, if you are interested in leaving a legacy that will help the Museum in the future, then this is possible. In fact Soane endowed the Museum with a legacy of £20,000 in 1837, which enabled the Museum to run itself for over 100 years without any further support. If you would like to learn how you can help keep the Museum running for another 100 years, please contact us. One of our staff would be happy to meet you and to discuss which particular aspect of the Museum's work you might like to support.

The Soane Patron's Circle

Established in the autumn of 2002, the Soane Patrons' Circle is an expanding group of individuals who wish to support the work of the Museum. In return for an annual donation to the value of £1,000 individuals and couples may become members of the Circle and enjoy a varied programme of special private views of new exhibitions, talks by the curators, and invitations to a programme of chamber concerts, lectures and entertainments performed in Soane's exquisite living rooms and elsewhere. In 2004 we hope to be able offer Patrons a guided tour to Italy, tracing the footsteps of Robert Adam's Grand Tour.

Corporate Benefaction

The Museum has started a limited Corporate Benefactors programme. In return for an annual donation, a small number of companies may use the exclusive facilities of the Museum for dining, receptions and other events. Companies will have access to the exclusive corporate entertaining facilities at the Museum and their staff and clients will be invited to a regular programme of talks and events held at the Museum. We would like to hear from any company that might be interested in this programme.

For information on the above programmes please contact Mike Nicholson, Development Director on +44 (0) 20 7440 4241 or email mnicholson@soane.org.uk or write to the Development Office at the Museum's address.

'Architecture Unshackled': George Dance 1741-1825

10 October 2003 - 3 January 2004

Described by C.R. Cockerell as 'the most complete poet-architect of his day', George Dance the Younger stands out as one of the pioneers of his profession. John Soane, his pupil and friend, saw him as 'one of the most accomplished architects of the English school' and praised the 'great fertility of invention' that infused his work. This exhibition, the first on this major architect since 1972, will provide a chance for modern observers to appreciate the range and variety of Dance's work.

During his career Dance produced a series of groundbreaking designs for public and private buildings. He held the important post of Architect to the Corporation of London from 1768 (the only outstanding architect to have occupied this position), but produced much of his best work independent of the City. His earliest commission, the church of All Hallows, London Wall (1765-7) was the first neo-classical building erected in Britain. Newgate Gaol (1770-80), with its forbidding exterior pierced by a doorway over-hung with iron shackles, was widely acknowledged as a masterpiece. In the south front of London's Guildhall (1777-8) Dance became the first European architect to introduce Indian proportions and elements into a design. Dance's interiors were equally revolutionary: his use of domed and 'star-fish' vaulted ceilings and his interest in invisible light sources was to exert a profound influence on the work of his one-time pupil, John Soane.

The collection of Dance drawings acquired by Soane in 1836 (now housed in the 'shrine' cabinet in the North Drawing Room of his Museum) will form the core of this exhibition. These drawings reveal Dance to be a brilliant draughtsman as well as a designer of great originality. They range from drawings Dance made during his time as a student in Italy (1758-64), through to his public works and the country house designs of his later career. Of his private house commissions his celebrated design for the library at Landsdowne House, Berkeley Square (1788-91) is perhaps best known, but he also designed houses at Stratton Park, Hampshire (1803-6), Coleorton, Leicestershire (1804-8) and Ashburnham, Sussex (1813-17) all of which exhibited startlingly new ideas. The exhibition will also feature Dance's extraordinary, unexecuted, project for redevelop-ing the Port of London at the heart of which was a double bridge spanning the Thames.

'Architecture Unshackled': George Dance, 1741-1825 will be curated by Jill Lever, who has written the first comprehensive catalogue of Dance's drawings in Soane's collection. The catalogue will be available from October 2003.

Library Cataloguing

The cataloguing of Sir John Soane's library has entered a new phase with the appointment of Stephen Massil under a grant from the Designation Challenge Fund. Stephen's task is to catalogue the 'General Library' which was divided from Soane's 'Architectural Library' in 1920 by the then Curator Arthur T. Bolton. Work on cataloguing the latter is already substantially underway and is being carried out by Nick Savage and Eileen Harris. Coordination of both these projects will result in the production of an on-line database of the whole of Soane's library to be offered on the Internet together with publication of a printed catalogue in the traditional manner. Here, Stephen describes the task ahead and some of the unexpected delights he has uncovered thus far.

While it is not true to say that Soane's 'General Library' is an unknown quantity, his books are perhaps the least studied of his collections. While the architectural books show evidence of con-siderable use by students and readers, the condition of many of the general books suggest that they have hardly been read at all and were even left unopened by Soane himself. I am also finding pencil notes discreetly marking suggestive quotations throughout books which otherwise show no evidence of having been read. There are of course some well-thumbed volumes such as the copy of Sterne's Sentimental Journey which Soane acquired in 1778 and had by him on his continental tour. This book is heavily annotated, but is still in excellent condition. An apple-pip caught between the pages of another volume provides evidence of a well-studied text.

Soane enjoyed his books and had his favourite authors. The Spectator, Sterne and Richardson seem to be the bedrock of his literary taste but his numerous copies of Rousseau's Confessions and many other works in French reveal a cosmopolitan taste. There is a select group comprising books that have been signed and dated by Soane using the original spelling of his name to which the 'e' has been added at a later date (after his marriage in 1783, it seems), amongst these I have found what I believe to be one of the earliest books retained in Soane's possession, a copy of George Fisher's The instructor: or, young man's best companion given to him by his sister Deborah and signed by him in 1764. Soane afterwards gave it to his second sister Susanna in memory of Deborah on her death in 1767. The book's frontispiece shows an old man instructing schoolboys and well-dressed youths in a well-stocked library containing globes and a panel displaying the Orders of Architecture. Could this have been an early source of inspiration for Soane's Museum?

One thing I am looking out for is examples of Soane's subscriptions to new works and the earliest instance of his inclusion in a list of subscribers can so far be dated to around 1785 in a collection of novelettes Portraits of the human mind. Soane's philanthropic interests are evident in his becoming a founding subscriber to the 'Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor in Ireland', 1822, published during a year of famine in Ireland when there were efforts to raise subscriptions to the Society through benefit concerts in Dublin and London. Soane's library also includes speeches from the leading proponents of Catholic Emancipation dating from 1810.

Stephen Massil

Forthcoming Events, Autumn 2003

For information on any of these events, and to book places, please contact
William Palin, Assistant Curator. Tel: 020 7440 4246. Email: wpalin@soane.org.uk

TUESDAY 9 - SATURDAY 13 SEPTEMBER
Hidden Treasures on Display in Research Library

To celebrate the 250th Birthday week of Sir John Soane (1753-1837) there will be a series of special displays of books and drawings in the Research Library.

There will be lunch hour talks on the displays each day at 1 pm.

TUESDAY 9 SEPTEMBER
Glimpses into the London of Soane's Day

In the early years of the nineteenth century Soane often sent the young architectural pupils in his office out into the streets of the capital to make sketches of buildings. These were then worked up into large- scale watercolours to serve as illustrations to Soane's Royal Academy lectures. A selection of the lecture drawings, together with some of the preliminary sketches, will be on display, offering a fascinating glimpse into features of London which have long since disappeared or are much changed. Through these drawings visitors are invited to peep inside the interiors of long demolished London houses and see the city that lay before Robert Chantrell as he climbed to the roof of 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields one day in 1813.

WEDNESDAY 10 SEPTEMBER
Illuminated Manuscripts

During his life Soane formed a small, high quality collection of illuminated manuscripts. In this special display to mark Soane's birthday, a selection of the best manuscripts will be on view to the public for the first time. The selection will include the celebrated A Commentary on the Epistle of St Paul by Cardinal Grimani, illuminated by Giulio Clovio (1498-1578) which Soane purchased in 1833 for the considerable sum of £735, and one of the greatest Netherlandish manuscripts - a translation into French of the second volume of the works of Josephus, previously housed in the English Royal Collections.

THURSDAY 11 SEPTEMBER
A Miscellany of Books

Soane's library will be celebrated with a miscellany of books carefully assembled and put on public display for the first time. This selection will include Soane's earliest surviving possession - a book he had at the age of 11 (1764) and the books he carried with him on the tour to Italy in 1778. There will also be two large contemporary editions of Shakespeare and a monumental Bible. A poignant note will be introduced though books with associations to Mrs Soane and John Soane Jnr. Those with an interest in architecture will be presented with a feast of material, and Soane's other passions will be revealed through books on Napoleon and Freemasonry.

FRIDAY 12 SEPTEMBER
The Grand Tour

Visitors are invited to embark on the Grand Tour as seen through the eyes of artists, architects, writers and amateurs of Soane's own time. Antiquity will be the central theme with drawings of ancient monuments by Sir William Chambers, Thomas Major, George Basevi, John Robert Cozens, George Dance and Soane himself. These will be displayed with an Italian sketchbook owned by Joshua Reynolds, one of the library's great treasures, and volumes containing original drawings of 'Sacred Antiquites' of Rome by the celebrated antiquarian William Stukeley. This display will serve as a reminder that Soane intended to provide his Royal Academy students with a superb resource of books and prints to complement the collection of fragments and casts hung in his Museum.

SATURDAY 13 SEPTEMBER
Soane's Pupils' Views of the Museum

The pupils in Soane's office were articled to work for him for five years. Generally, they were only 15 or 16 years of age when they started and their first weeks were spent in improving their skills in draughtsmanship and in making measured drawings of ornaments, capitals and mouldings. Their views of the Museum were exercises in perspective as well as in capturing lighting effects. As Soane continually changed the layout of his interiors and constantly rearranged his sculptures, these surviving drawings are a precious record of earlier phases of the Museum.

Special Private View

THURSDAY 18 SEPTEMBER, 6-8PM
London 1753

The British Museum

Limited places are available for a special 'Soane' Private View of London 1753 at the Prints and Drawings gallery at the British Museum. The curator of the exhibition, Sheila O'Connell, will be on hand to give a short introductory talk and answer questions. Tickets cost £5 (£2.50) to students and should be booked in advance.

Lectures

MONDAY 22 SEPTEMBER, 6.30 FOR 7PM
SPECIAL SOANE LECTURE
Renaissance Ideals in Adam Architecture

Professor Alistair Rowan

At the Royal Society of Medicine,
1 Wimpole Street, W1

The two-and-a-half years that Adam spent in Rome introduced him not only to the grandeur of Classical Antiquity but also to the ideas and concepts of Italian Renaissance architecture. His introduction of neo-classical motifs - heroic porticoes, domed halls and a type of rich yet delicate Antique interior - is well known: less recognition is given to the debt that Adam owes to Antiquity as filtered by Renaissance thought and theory.

Tickets cost £5 (£2.50 for students) and places must be booked in advance (details below) or by filling in the form at www.soane.org

THURSDAY 25 SEPTEMBER, 6 FOR 6.30PM
SOANE STUDY GROUP
Sir William Bruce's Hopetoun House.
A First Essay in French Taste?

Dr James Macaulay

Dr James Macaulay is a leading architectural historian working in Glasgow. He is a consultant to Hopetoun House and is also working on biographies of Robert Adam and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

THURSDAY 23 OCTOBER, 6 FOR 6.30PM
SOANE STUDY GROUP
'Our Marble Tribute': Heroes of the Napoleonic Wars at St Paul's Cathedral

Dr Ann Saunders

Too often, visitors to St Paul's Cathedral hurry past the monuments, erected at public expense, to the heroes of the Napoleonic Wars. These national tributes deserve more discriminating attention. They express a very real grief, and a very real pride in the men who fought and died for their country in a struggle that lasted on land and sea for twenty-two years. Many of these monuments are important works in their own right, however unfashionable the style in which they are carved may be today. This lecture is the story of those monuments.

Ann Saunders has published widely on art and architecture and is the author of St Paul's: the story of the Cathedral, written specially to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. Last year she was awarded the MBE for services to history.

THURSDAY 30 OCTOBER, 6.30 FOR 7PM
SOANE ANNUAL LECTURE
Julien-David Leroy's Search for the Spirit
of Architecture

Dr Robin Middleton

At the Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields WC2

Tickets cost £6 (£3 to students) and can be purchased at the door or booked in advance.

TUESDAY 25 NOVEMBER, 7.30PM
SPECIAL SOANE LECTURE
AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION
The Origin and Progress of Architecture
According to Sir John Soane

Professor David Watkin

The Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS

Professor David Watkin has assembled this one- lecture summary of the twelve lectures which Sir John Soane (1753-1837) delivered in 1817 and 1820 at the Royal Institution and between 1809 and 1836 at the Royal Academy where he was appointed Professor of Architecture in 1806. His buildings included the Bank of England, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and country houses such as Tyringham, Buckinghamshire, and Pitzhanger Manor, Ealing, for himself.

Professor Watkin will include no words in his lecture that were not spoken by Soane, and will illustrate it with slides taken from Soane's original lecture drawings, preserved at Sir John Soane's Museum. The lectures became especially famous for the beauty of these watercolours which constitute an unique visual record of the history of architecture. Beginning with a striking image of Noah's ark, compared with a modern man-of-war, they include the Hindu temple at Elephanta near Bombay, Greek and Roman architecture, as well as Renaissance and Baroque, ending with tart criticisms of contemporary buildings like Smirke's Convent Garden Opera House. He included illustrations of his work at the Bank of England, and of his own house and Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, built between 1792 and 1824, with which the lecture concludes.

Tickets to the event are priced at £8 standard, £5 RI members and concessions (students and OAPs). Bookings can be made by telephone on 020 7670 2985 (Visa and Mastercard only), by email: bookings@ri.ac.uk or online at www.rigb.org For information call 020 7409 2992 or email events@ri.ac.uk

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