Sir John Soane's Museum
Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects and a large collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and antiquities that he acquired over many years. The museum was established during Soane's lifetime by a private act of Parliament, Sir John Soane's Museum Act 1833, which took effect on his death in 1837. Soane engaged in this lengthy parliamentary campaign in order to disinherit his son, whom he disliked intensely. The act stipulated that on Soane's death, his house and collections would pass into the care of a board of trustees acting on behalf of the nation, and that they would be preserved as nearly as possible exactly in the state they were at his death. The museum's trustees remained completely independent, relying only on Soane's original endowment, until 1947. Since then, the museum has received an annual Grant-in-Aid from the British Government via the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Only 90 visitors are allowed in the museum at a time.
From 1988 onwards, a programme of restoration was carried out, with spaces such as the drawing rooms, picture room, study and dressing room, picture room recess and others, restored to their original colour schemes and in most cases having their original sequences of objects reinstated. Soane's three courtyards were also restored with his pasticcio being reinstated in the monument court at the heart of the museum. In 1997, the trustees purchased the main house at No. 14 with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund. The house was restored and has enabled the museum to expand its educational activities, to re-locate its research library, and create a Robert Adam Study Centre where Soane's collection of 9,000 Robert Adam drawings is housed.
Soane's collection of paintings includes works by Canaletto, Hogarth, three works by his friend J. M. W. Turner, Thomas Lawrence, Antoine Watteau, Joshua Reynolds, Augustus Wall Callcott, Henry Fuseli, William Hamilton and 15 drawings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, many of which are framed and displayed in the museum. There are over 30,000 architectural drawings in the collection, along with various Egyptian, Greek and Roman antiquities, including the Sarcophagus of Seti I.
The Soane Medal, established in 2017, is an international award presented annually by the Museum.
History
Houses
Soane demolished and rebuilt three houses in succession on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. He began with No. 12, externally a plain brick house. After becoming Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy in 1806, Soane purchased No. 13, the house next door, today the museum, and rebuilt it in two phases in 1808–09 and 1812.In 1808–09, Soane constructed his drawing office and "museum" on the site of the former stable block at the back, using primarily top lighting. In 1812, he rebuilt the front part of the site, adding a projecting Portland stone façade to the basement, ground and first floor levels and the centre bay of the second floor. Originally, this formed three open loggias, but Soane glazed the arches during his lifetime. Once he had moved into No. 13, Soane rented out his former home at No. 12.
After completing No.13, Soane set about treating the building as an architectural laboratory, continually remodelling the interiors. In 1823, when he was over 70, he purchased a third house, No. 14, which he rebuilt in 1823–24. This project allowed him to construct a picture gallery, linked to No.13, on the former stable block of No. 14. The front main part of this third house was treated as a separate dwelling and let as an investment; it was not internally connected to the other buildings. When he died, No. 14 was bequeathed to his family and passed out of the museum's ownership.
Museum
The museum was established during Soane's own lifetime by a private act of Parliament, , which took effect on Soane's death in 1837. The act required that No. 13 be maintained "as nearly as possible" as it was left at the time of Soane's death, and that has largely been done. The act was necessary because Sir John had a living direct male heir, his son George, with whom he had had a "lifelong feud" due to George's debts, refusal to engage in a trade, and his marriage, of which Sir John disapproved. He also wrote an "anonymous, defamatory piece for the Sunday papers about Sir John, calling him a cheat, a charlatan and a copyist". Since under contemporary inheritance law George would have been able to lay claim to Sir John's property on his death, Sir John engaged in a lengthy parliamentary campaign to disinherit his son via a private act, setting out to "reverse the fundamental laws of hereditary succession" according to some. The Soane Museum Act was passed in April 1833 and stipulated that on Soane's death his house and collections would pass into the care of a board of trustees, on behalf of the nation, and that they should be preserved as nearly as possible exactly as they were left at his death.Towards the end of the 19th century a break-through was made to re-connect the rear rooms of No. 12 through to the museum in No. 13 and since 1969 No. 12 has been run by the trustees as part of the museum, housing the research library, offices and, since 1995, the Eva Jiřičná-designed 'Soane Gallery' for temporary exhibitions. The museum's trustees remained completely independent, relying only on Soane's original endowment, until 1947. Since that date the museum has received an annual Grant-in-Aid from the British Government.
Restoration projects
The Soane Museum is a national centre for the study of architecture. From 1988 to 2005, a programme of restoration within the museum was carried out under Peter Thornton and then Margaret Richardson with spaces such as the drawing rooms, picture room, study and dressing room, picture room recess and others being put back to their original colour schemes and in most cases having their original sequences of objects reinstated; Soane's three courtyards were also restored with his pasticcio being reinstated in the monument court at the heart of the museum.In 1997, the trustees purchased the main house at No. 14 with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund. The house was restored and has enabled the museum to expand its educational activities, to re-locate its Research Library into that house, and to create a Robert Adam Study Centre where Soane's collection of 9,000 Robert Adam drawings is housed in purpose-designed new cabinets by Senior and Carmichael.
Opening up the Soane project, 2011–2016
The acquisition of No. 14 enabled the museum under its new director Tim Knox to complete the restoration of the museum's historic spaces, for about £7 million, funded by the Monument Trust, the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Soane Foundation in New York, and other private trusts. The museum's architects are Julian Harrap Architects.Phase 1 began in March 2011 and was completed in 2013. It included the re-configuration of No. 12, moving the temporary exhibition gallery up to the first floor, and new reception facilities and a shop on the ground floor. It also included new conservation studios, named the John and Cynthia Fry Gunn Conservation Centre, and the installation of lifts to provide disabled access for the first time.
Phase 2 saw the restoration of Soane's private apartments on the second floor and opened to public tours in summer 2015. Lost rooms recreated include Soane's own bedroom and bathroom, which he showed to the public in his lifetime.
Phase 3 provided a new Study Room at the back of No. 12 for the public to learn more about Soane, and restoration of Soane's ground-floor Ante Room with almost 200 works of art and the catacombs beneath it. The final Phase 3 of the programme was completed in summer 2016.
Architecture
The most famous spaces in the house are those at the rear of the museum – the dome area, colonnade and museum corridor. These are mostly toplit and provide some idea in miniature form of the ingenious lighting contrived by Soane for the toplit banking halls at the Bank of England. The ingeniously designed Picture Gallery has walls composed of large 'moveable planes' that allow it to house three times as many items as a space of this size could normally accommodate.The more domestic rooms of No. 13 are at the front of the house, many of them highly unusual, but often in subtle ways. The domed ceiling of the Breakfast Room, inset with convex mirrors, has influenced architects from around the world. The Library-Dining Room reflects the influence of Etruscan tombs and perhaps even gothic design in its repertoire of small pendants like those in fan vaulting. It is decorated in a rich 'Pompeian' red. The Study contains a collection of Roman architectural fragments and the two external courtyards, the Monument Court and Monk's Yard contain an array of architectural fragments, Classical in the Monument Court with its central column or pasticcio representing Architecture and Gothic in the Monk's Yard, filled with medieval stonework from the Palace of Westminster and a monument to Mrs Soane's dog 'Fanny'.
Collections
Antiquities, medieval and non-western objects
As his practice prospered, Soane was able to collect objects worthy of the British Museum, including the Sarcophagus of Seti I, covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs, discovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, bought on 12 May 1824 for £2000 —Soane's most expensive art work.After the Seti sarcophagus arrived at his house in March 1825, Soane held a three-day party, to which 890 people were invited, the basement where the sarcophagus was housed was lit by over one hundred lamps and candelabra, refreshments were laid on and the exterior of the house was hung with lamps. Among the guests were the then Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool and his wife, Robert Peel, Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, J.M.W. Turner, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough, Benjamin Haydon as well as many foreign dignitaries.
Other antiquities include: Greek and Roman bronzes, including ones from Pompeii, cinerary urns, fragments of Roman mosaics, Greek vases many displayed above the bookcases in the library, Greek and Roman busts, heads from statues and fragments of sculpture and architectural decoration, examples of Roman glass.
Medieval objects include: architectural fragments, mainly from the Old Palace of Westminster, tiles and stained glass. Soane acquired 44 examples of 18th-century Chinese ceramics as well as 12 examples of Peruvian pottery. Soane also purchased four ivory chairs and a table, believed to be made in Murshidabad for Tipu Sultan's palace at Srirangapatna.