Yale University, School of Architecture

Sir John Soane's Model Room

Author(s): Helen Dorey
Source: Perspecta, Vol. 41, Grand Tour (2008), pp. 46, 26, 92-93, 170-171
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of Perspecta.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40482308 .
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ForimagesofSirJohnSoane's
modelroomandmodels,see
pages 26,92-93,and 17O-171.
SirJohnSoane's ModelRoom
Helen Dorey
SirJohnSoane (175 3-1 837) was born was appointedarchitectto the Bank of ments,seekingalwaysto enhancethe
theson of a bricklayerin Goring-on- England,a job he laterdescribedas the "poeticeffects"and picturesquequali-
Thames,nearReading,England. He "prideand boast of mylife."The Bank tiesof thearchitectural settingand to
- a miniaturecity
was his masterpiece createdidacticdisplaysforthe benefit
beganhis architectural careerat age
fifteen,
joining the officeof George withintheCity,withfortified walls, of his students.One of the lastof
Dance theYoungerin the Cityof triumphal arches,courtyards, and vast thesealterationswas his Model Room,
London. When he was eighteen,he top-litbanking halls reminiscentof createdin 1834-3 5 m whathad been
enrolledat the RoyalAcademyas an Roman Baths.Soane remainedas the his wife'sbedroomon thesecond floor.
architecturalstudent,attendingthe Banks Architectforforty-five years, The room housed imaginativedisplays
evening lecturesgivenby the Professor onlyretiringat theage of eightyin in whichhistoricand contemporary
ofArchitecture Thomas Sandby,and in 1833. His othermasterpiecesinclude architectural models,including
thesame yearstartingworkforHenry Britain'sfirstpublic artgallery,the depictionsof antique buildingsin
Holland. It was duringtheseyearsthat Dulwich PictureGallery;diningrooms both ruinedand reconstructed states,
Soane musthave firstencountered at Nos. 10 and 11 Downing Street; weredisplayedalongsideone another,
theantiqueworld,and especiallythe workat numerouscountryhouses; surroundedby frameddrawingsof
buildingsof ancientRome thatso and the Soane tomb,one of onlytwo Soane's own works.
inspiredhim in his laterwork:the Grade 1 listedtombsin London. Soane In 18 33, Soane negotiatedan Act
Temple ofVestaat Tivoli; theTemple had a long associationwiththe Royal of Parliamentto settleand preservehis
of Castorand Polluxin the Forum, AcademyofArtsin London, wherehe house and collectionforthebenefitof
hailed since the Renaissanceas the was electedProfessorofArchitecture "amateursand students"in architec-
mostbeautifulexampleof the Corin- in 1806, a post he held forthirty-one ture,painting,and sculpture.Thé Act
thianorderin theworld;the Pantheon; years.In 18 3 1, he was knightedby statedthatthearrangements of objects
and the ruinsof theEmperorHadrians KingWilliam iv. Despite failingeye- mustbe preserved"as nearlyas pos-
Villa at Tivoli. sight,Soane continuedworkinguntil sible"as theywereleftat the timeof
In 1776, Soane won the Royal shortlybeforehis deathin 1837 at the his death.The Soane Museum,withits
AcademyGold Medal forArchitecture, age of eighty-four. evocativedisplays,remainsone of the
and as a resultwas awardeda traveling Soane is regardedas the fatherof worlds greatesthouse museums.
scholarshippaid forby King George thearchitectural professionin Britain, Soane's friendIsaac D'Israeli wrote
in. He set offforItalyat 5 a.m. on and his workstillprovidesinspiration to him in a letterof 183 5, "Yourmu-
March 18, 1778, a date he remem- to architectsacrosstheworld,from seum is permanently magical,forthe
beredwithnostalgiaforthe restof his ArataIsozaki in Japanto Richard enchantmentsof artare eternal.Some
life.Afterarrivingin Rome on May 2, Meier at the GettyCenterin Los in poems have raisedfinearchitectural
Soane was soon writingto a friendthat Angelesto RichardMacCormac at the edifices,but mostrarehave been those
his attentionwas entirelytakenup in RuskinArchivein Leicester.England's who have discoveredwhen theyhad
seeingand examiningthe numerous famousredtelephonebox was inspired finishedtheirhouse, ifsuch a house
and inestimableremainsof antiquity, by Soane s designs. can everbe said to be finished,that
and of the "zeal and attachment"he SirJohnSoane's house, museum, theyhad builta poem."
feltforthem.He asked his friendto and libraryat No. 13 Lincoln'sInn Soon afterSoane's deathin 1837
imagine"withwhatimpatienceI have Fields,London, has been a public his Model Room was disbandedto
waitedforthescenesI now enjoy." museumsince theearlynineteenth makeway forcuratorialoffices.This
Soane s timein Italywas spentvisit- century.Soane moved into thesquare represented not onlytheloss of one of
ing antique,Renaissance,and contem- in the 1790s, when he bought,-demol- Soane's mostevocativeinteriors, but
porarybuildingsfromGenoa, Vicenza, ished,and rebuiltNo. 12 (1792-94). also to some degreedilutedthe central-
and Veronain the northto Paestum Afterhis appointmentas Professorof ityof architecture to Soane's concep-
and Sicilyin thesouth. He oftentook Architecture at the RoyalAcademy, tionof his house and collection.
detailedmeasurements of monuments he wenton to acquire,demolish,and The acquisitionand restoration of
by climbingto dizzyingheightsand rebuildNo. 13, a largerproperty, to No. 14 Lincoln'sInn Fields,nextdoor
droppinga plumb line or usinga mea- accommodatehis ever-growing collec- to theMuseum, has made it possible
suringrod,and he filledmanyjournals tion of architectural antiquities.When to plan therestoration of theModel
withnotesand sketches. he was overseventy, he bought,demol- Room as partof a programofworks
Soane returnedto London in 1780 ished,and rebuiltNo. 14 (1824-25), which,iffundraising is successful,will
and set up his own architecturalprac- extendinghis museumpremisesacross be completedby 201 2 and will see the
tice. He marriedan heiress,Elizabeth the rearofthathouse. Throughoutthe whole of thesecond floor,including
Smith,in 1784. Using contactsmade whole period,Soane also made con- Soane's Bedroom,Bath Room, Ora-
in Rome to good effect,
he rapidly tinuousalterationsto his "Museum," tory,and Mrs. Soane's MorningRoom,
made a name forhimself.In 1788, he addingmoreobjectsto his arrange- restored.
46 SirJohnSoane'sModelRoom
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/';-=09 )(8*=-0/']

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 View of Soane's Model Room on the second English architects including William Kent and
floor of 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, C.J. Soane's near-contemporaries Sir William
Richardson, c. 1834-35. © The British Chambers and James Wyatt.Thus, Soane's
Library Board. model stand served as a microcosm of
the historyof architecture that focused on
This watercolor shows Soane's Model Room,
worthy buildings fromthe past but also
upon its completion in 1834, and was included his own work and that of his con-
engraved for publication in Soane's Descrip- temporaries.
- Helen
Dorey
tion of the House and Museum of 1835. It
is taken fromthe window looking across
the room at the large two-tier model stand,
which was made for Soane when he bought
the large cork model of Pompeii displayed
on the lower tier.The stand was designed to
allow forthe display of additional cork and
plaster models in an imaginative "architec-
tural composition" around the outside of
both upper and lower levels. These included
cork models of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli
(in the foreground at the corner of the lower
tier) and the Greek Doric temples at Paes-
tum; a collection of twenty plaster of Paris
models by Francois Fouquet of conjectural
reconstructions of antique buildings (Fou-
quet's model of the Pantheon can be seen in
a glass case at the corner of the upper level);
and models of Soane's own projects (on the
bottom of the stand, to leftof the cupboard
doors, is a model of his famous Bank Stock
Office forthe Bank of England). The model
stand incorporated a plan chest in the base,
which contained collections of drawings by

For moreon SirJohnSoane,

see page 46. For additionalimages
fromSirJohnSoane's Model
Room, see pages 26 and 17O-171. 92 SirJohnSoane's Model Room

This content downloaded from 62.122.73.177 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:54:47 AM

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Plaster model of the "restored" Temple of
Vesta at Tivoli, made by Francois Fouquet (fl.
1792-1835). Photograph by Geremy Butler.
Courtesy the Trustees of Sir JohnSoane's
Museum.
This model is one of twenty "restorations" of
ancient Greek and Roman buildings made by
the Parisian model maker Francois Fouquet,
and purchased by Soane in 1834 fromthe
architect Edward Cresy for one hundred
pounds. Fouquet worked with his father,
Jean-Pierre Fouquet (1752-1829), produc-
ing models forarchitects and collectors
fromthe 1790s untilthe 1830s. Francois
Fouquet's models tend to be smaller and
more finelydetailed than those of his father.
It is thought that they were made by building
up the plaster over a frameworkof thin
internal metal armatures and then carving the
extraordinarilyfine capitals and entablatures
by hand. The Fouquets produced models
forthe École Polytechnique as well as for
the model gallery of the artist and collector
Louis-Francois Cassas (1756-1827). Soane
may have seen this collection when he
visited Paris in 1814 during the "Hundred
Days of Peace" before the Battle of Waterloo.
The Fouquets' exquisite models were well
known to architect-collectors in England, and
John Nash and Robert Smirke also owned
examples of their work.
The evidence for Fouquefs reconstruc-
tions probably came froma variety of
published sources, and perhaps also from
Cassas's own drawings of antique ruins. The
measurements used forthis model were
probably based on those published by An-
toine Desgodetz in Les édifices antiques de
Rome dessinés et mesurés très exactement
(1779). Desgodetz shows an entablature
with two ox heads in each intercolumnia-
tion and one over each column, as used by
Fouquet. Desgodetz does not reconstruct a
dome, but other possible sources, such as
Palladio and Serlio, show a stepped dome
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similar to the Pantheon. Fouquet seems to
have modeled his dome on that of Durand,
published in Recueil et parallèle des édifices
de tout genre (1 800) , but he uses two
rather than three steps at the base and adds
the pineapple finial.The circular stepped
platformbelow the temple may have come
-
entirelyfrom Fouquet's imagination. H.D.
Cork model of the Temple of Vesta at Tivoli,
near Rome, made by Giovanni Altieri (fi.
1767-90), 1770s. Photograph by Hugh
Kelly.Courtesy the Trustees of Sir John
Soane's Museum.
•The temple of Vesta, dating fromthe early
firstcentury B.C. and set dramatically on the
edge of a precipice, was Soane's favorite
antique building. He was probably introduced
to it by his earliest teacher, George Dance
the Younger, and he sketched and took
careful measurements of it as a student in
Italyin 1778-79. The temple remained a
powerful source of inspiration throughout his
career, its distinctiveorder appearing in some
of Soane's most famous works, such as the
Tivoli Corner at the Bank of England. Soane
even created a "Tivoli Recess" at Lincoln's
Inn Fields in tributeto the temple. In later life,
his pupil JohnSanders referredto the temple
in a letteras "your darling Tivoli."
The model was firstdisplayed in Soane's
Dome area at the back of the Museum,
perched on top of a teetering pile of archi-
tectural fragments. It was then a prominent
exhibit in Soane's firstModel Room, created
in 1828 in the attic of Lincoln's Inn Fields. In
Soane's second Model Room, the model is
shown on the central stand. Curiously, it was
not displayed next to the plaster model by
Fouquet of the same building, although both
were in the Model Room, and Soane surely
used the contrast between the cork ruins
and the plaster reconstructions for didactic
- H.D.
purposes.
SirJohnSoane's Model Room 93
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 Corkmodelof the so-calledTombof the of antiquity.
Itis of less finequalitythancork
HoratNand Curiatiiat AlbanoLaziale, models bythe leadingItalianmakers,such
nearRome,made byan unknownmodel as GiovanniAltieri,
and itis possiblethat
maker,late eighteenthcentury.
Photograph itwas manufactured in England,perhapsby
by HughKelly.CourtesytheTrusteesof RichardDubourg,who made and exhibited
SirJohnSoane's Museum. corkmodels in Londoninthe late eighteenth
century.Soane visitedDubourg's"museum"
Thismodelshows a tombof thefirstcentury on March11,1 785, and itis possiblethat
B.C. locatedon the Via Appiasouthof Rome. some of the othercorkmodels in his collec-
An excursionto thetombof the Horatii tioncame fromthissource.- HelenDorey
and the Curiatiiwas an essentialpartof any
visitto Rome inthe eighteenth century,
and itwas frequently depictedbyartists.
Measuredplansof thetomb,whichmight
have servedas the basis forthe construction
of the model,were publishedby Bartoli
and Piranesi.Soane mentionedthetombin
histenthRoyalAcademylectureas an
exampleof the commemoration of heroic
deeds throughmonuments. The accompany-
inglectureillustration
has a noteon the
back reading"froma modelbyTurnerelli."
Thisprobablyrefersto the sculptorPeter
Turnerelli(1774-1835), who mayhave
been the maker,or,perhapsmorelikely, the
previousownerof the model.The lecture
illustration
shows how modelscould also be
used inthe creationof vedute(views)
of antiqueruins.The modeltakes up almost
the entiresurfaceof the boardon which
itstands,has a roughfinish,and has been
blackenedto heightenthe appearance

For moreon SirJohnSoane,

see page 46. For additionalimages
fromSirJohnSoane's Model
Room, see pages 26 and 92-93. 17O SirJohnSoane's Model Room

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 Corkmodelof the Monterisi-Rossignoli tomb
inCanosa, made by DomenicoPadiglione
and RaffaeleGargiulo(vases
(architecture)
and stucco reliefs, in Naples,early
attributed)
nineteenthcentury. PhotographHughKelly.
CourtesytheTrusteesof SirJohnSoane's
Museum.

Thismodelis one of fourmodelsof ancient

tombsexcavatedinthe Kingdomof Naples,
around1800, whichwere inSoane's collec-
tionby 1825. Sadly,one of thefourdoes not
survive.Likethe Paestummodels,thetomb
modelswere made byDomenicoPadiglione
in Naples.Theirinternalfurnishings and
decorationwere made byanotheremployee
of the museumin Naples,thevase conserva-
torRaffaeleGargiulo.Fromthe outside,the
models looklikeplaincorkboxes. However,
openingthe lidsrevealstheirsophisticated
interments. Each tombcontainsa skeleton
surroundedbyvases and otheritemsthat,
despitetheirminutesize, have verydetailed
decoration.
The modelsshow famousexcavationsof
the periodand were intendedto demonstrate
the findcontextof classicalvases, which
were popularamongcollectorsand stillde-
scribedas "Etruscan"inthe earlynineteenth
century.Such modelsare knownto have
been used as adjunctsto vase collections,
as whenthe Kingof Naples presenteda
largenumberof ancientvases to Napoleon
Bonapartein 1802. He sentwiththema
modelof a tomb,meantto be displayedwith
the vases to explaintheiroriginalcontext.
Soane mentionedsuch tombsinhisfirst
RoyalAcademylecture,inwhichhe com-
pareddifferent kindsof ancientsepulchral
chambersand singledout Etruscantombs
fortheirinterestingand varieddecoration.
-H.D.

The corkmodelattributions(pp. 93, 170,

171) and muchof the information about the
individual
corkmodelscomes fromProfes-
sor ValentinKockelof AugsburgUniversity,
whose book on the Soane Museumcork
modelswillbe publishedin 2008.

SirJohnSoane'sModelRoom 171

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