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DRAWINGS
FROM THE
COLLECTION OF
SIR JOHN SOANE
The Soane Museum is in possession of the first comprehensive drawings collection compiled in Britain. Unsurprisingly, considering Soaneās profession, it is largely architectural in subject matter. However, the collection is impressively diverse, representing the early Renaissance through to Soaneās own lifetime and with examples from countries as widespread as Italy and India.
Giulio Clovio, illuminations in Cardinal Marino Grimaniās Commentary on the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans, c.1537ā8, SM volume 143/7 verso-8 recto. Photographs: Ardon Bar-Hama.
Giulio Clovio was a Croatian painter and illuminator active in Italy during the sixteenth century. Later in the sixteenth century, Giorgio Vasari described him as the finest miniaturist of all time and certainly today Clovio is widely considered a national Croatian hero ā his importance for Croatians is akin to that of Shakespeare to the British. This manuscript was made for Cardinal Grimani in whose household Clovio had trained as a painter from an early age under Giulio Romano. The volume contains miniatures by Clovio and astonishingly beautiful calligraphy by his assistant, Francesco Monteschi, all applied to vellum. The borders of these two plates were inspired by Raphaelās lost tapestry cartoons of the Conversion of Saul, which had been in the collection of Cardinal Grimaniās uncle. Of particular interest on the first page, in the centre of the left-hand side, we can see a roundel depicting St Paul holding a sword and a book, and on the second page, in the centre of the right-hand border, we can see a portrait of Cardinal Grimani himself. The principal framed image depicts the conversion of St Paul. The volume was purchased from the Grimani family library in the eighteenth century by Consul Joseph Smith, who was doubtless responsible for bringing it to England. It then passed through several hands and was sold to Soane in 1833 by the Duke of Buckingham.
Flemish School: two artists, illumination showing the construction of the Tower of Babel from a Book of Hours, after 1512, SM volume 137/26 recto. Photograph: Geremy Butler.
Books of Hours were used by Roman Catholics, particularly wealthy women, from the medieval period onwards, as a means of instructing personal prayer at particular canonical times of the day. The wealthier the owner or donor of the Book of Hours, the more opulently they were illuminated. There is a note in German and Latin within this early sixteenth-century Flemish example, which explains that it was made as a gift for Johanna, wife of Fernando of Aragon, from Wolfgang Wilhelm, Count Palatine of Neuberg, and therefore it is of the highest quality. Containing illuminations by two different artists, but carefully arranged in order that the plates should be relevant to the adjacent text, this volume was clearly created as a single entity rather than cannibalized from other sources. Each illumination follows the same three-quarter page format, with the subjects for these images lifted from both the Old and New Testaments. Each is paired with another suitable illumination. This plate illustrates the construction of the Tower of Babel and is paired with an image of Pentecost. Annotations within the volume show that it later belonged to Edward Knight, at the sale of whose possessions on 10 May 1821 it was purchased by Richard, 1st Duke of Buckingham (fourth creation). It was finally sold to Soane in September 1833 by the Duke, Soaneās client at Stowe, for the colossal sum of Ā£735, along with a late fifteenth-century Book of Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, written for use in Tours, France, and Marino Grimaniās sixteenth-century Commentary on the Epistle of St Paul to the Romans.
Attributed to the Master of Mantegna, elevations of a pilaster and two entablatures, sixteenth century, SM volume 114/11. Photograph: Ardon Bar-Hama.
Attributed to the so-called Master of Mantegna, whose work can be found in a sketchbook in the Kunstbibliothek in Berlin, this drawing of ornamental details depicts a foliate pilaster incorporating dolphins and two elaborate entablatures, all of which are probably derived from unknown antique sources. Although not visible here, the right-hand corners of the sheet are rounded, suggesting that it was once a leaf within a sketchbook, perhaps a pattern book of antique decorative motifs. It was certainly made within a studio environment rather than from observation in situ as the paper has been carefully incised prior to the application of ink. The drawing is contained within the Margaret Chinnery Album, which is a scrapbook album of Italian and Northern European Renaissance drawings of architecture and interior decorative motifs by a variety of artists, seemingly assembled in the seventeenth century. It is named after an inscription on the first folio in an eighteenth-century hand. Margaret Chinnery was the wife of one of Soaneās clients, William Bassett Chinnery of Gillwell Hall in Essex, for whom he had made improvements to a London townhouse on Mortimer Street. Chinnery was a noted patron of the arts, but in 1812 was found to have embezzled Ā£81,000 from the Treasury and fled to the Continent. Soane attended a sale of the coupleās possessions on 7 June 1812, but this volume was not included. Lynda Fairbairn has suggested that Soane acquired the volume earlier than the 1812 sale in lieu of architectās fees for his work at Mortimer Street.
Giovanni Battista Montano after Andrea Palladio, plan, elevation, section and details of the Pantheon, Rome, c.1540ā1621, SM volume 124/61. Photograph: Ardon Bar-Hama.
Giovanni Battista Montano produced this drawing of the Pantheon after a plate from Andrea Palladioās I quattro libri dellāarchitecttura ā¦ (1570). Montano worked principally as a woodcarver, but also had considerable skill as a draughtsman, architect and model-maker. Although he was a member of the Accademia di San Luca where he exercised considerable influence through his lectures on architecture, and worked for a number of prominent clients, including Fernando deā Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1598ā1601, none of Montanoās woodcarving or architectural work survives and he never found fame during the course of his life. It was the quality of his drawings ā many illustrating antique buildings ā for which he received posthumous notoriety. Although we do not know why Montano made these drawings in the first place, they were edited by a former architectural collaborator, Giovanni Battista Soria, who published a selection of them from 1624 in Li cinque libri di architettura di Gio. Battista Montani Milanese ā¦ At some time before his death, Soria sold Montanoās drawings to Cassiano dal Pozzo for his paper museum. Three volumes of drawings by Montano from the Dal Pozzo collection were among items purchased by Soane in 1818 at the Adam sale (see here).
Attributed to Hieronymus Cock after the circle of Domenico Ghirlandaio, view of the Colosseum, Rome, c.1550, SM volume 114/30. Photograph: Geremy Butler.
The high quality of this drawing, which depicts the exterior of the Colosseum, with glimpses through the arcaded walls into the arena, suggests that it was carefully made for engraving. It has been attributed to the Flemish etcher and publisher, Hieronymus Cock (1518ā70), who from 1550 made a series of Roman views for publication from observation of drawings by other artists. In this case the image is certainly taken from the fifteenth-century Codex Escurialensis, attributed to the circle of Ghirlandaio and now in the library at San Lorenzo de El Escorial in Madrid. This drawing is contained within the Margaret Chinnery Album, which was probably given or sold to Soane in lieu of architectās fees by William Bassett Chinnery (see here).
Bernardo della Volpaia, elevation and view of entablatures, later sixteenth and seventeenth century, from the Codex Coner, SM volume 115/88. Photograph: Ardon Bar-Hama.
The Codex Coner is a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century volume of architectural and decorative drawings formerly attributed to a German priest, Andreas Coner, and now considered to be by a Florentine architect, Bernardo della Volpaia (1475ā1521) and another later hand. It was borrowed from Volpaia in 1516 by Michelangelo, in an effort to better school himself in architectural detail. There are six drawings by Michelangelo a...
