No 14: Spring 2007 - Sir John Soane's Museum

SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM
newsletter no.14 spring 2007
It’s 2007 and Sir John Soane’s Museum is buzzing with
visitors and new initiatives. Last year, we welcomed over
90,000 visitors to the Museum, the largest number since
records began. Visions of World Architecture, an exhibition of
Soane’s extraordinary lecture illustrations opened in January,
while last week we unveiled Soane and Turner: Illuminating a
Friendship, exploring the close relationship between Soane
and the painter J M W Turner. Tate Britain’s generous loan of
Turner’s Forum Romanum and other works, provides us with
some consolation for the temporary, three-month loan of our
great series, A Rake’s Progress and An Election, to the exhibition
Hogarth being held at Tate Britain. More on all these exhibitions
later on. But in early February the Museum also received the
sad news of the death of Peter Kai Thornton, cbe, Curator of
Sir John Soane’s Museum between 1984 and 1995. A short
but heartfelt tribute to Peter, who died on 8 February 2007
after a long illness, can be found on page 3 of this Newsletter.
In February we also welcome a new member of staff,
Dr Stephanie Coane, who will take up the post of Librarian to
Sir John Soane’s Museum. The purpose of this three-year
contract is to complete the work of putting the catalogue
of Soane’s library online, building on the valuable work of
Nick Savage, Eileen Harris and Stephen Massil. Stephanie (or
Letter from the Director
Bocca della Verità in the Colonnade (see Museums and Galleries Month)
Stephie as she prefers to be known) comes to the Soane
from Harrow Reference Library, via the Warburg Institute
Library. She has a DPhil in French Literature from Oxford
(specialising in eighteenth-century French explorers in the
Pacific), and an MA in Library and Information Studies
from University College, London. She has wide-ranging
interests in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture, and
has particularly impressed me as being able to identify the
Northumbrian castle in the background of a photograph of my
dachshund Tiger when we met for lunch to discuss the new
role a few weeks ago! We are all greatly looking forward to
working with Stephie and watching the results of her labours
appear on the Soane website.
Next month Sir John Soane’s Museum will again be
recruiting, this time for an Education Manager to head the
burgeoning education programme at the Museum. Education
at the Soane takes many forms, catering for individuals, families,
schools, colleges and community groups, as well as outreach
initiatives and projects for youth associations and special
needs groups. The new Education Manager will work with Jane
Monahan, Schools and Families Education Officer, and Will
Palin, our Exhibition and Education Curator, overseeing the
planning, development and implementation of an expanding

(continued from page 1)
programme of events and courses for the public, schools and
families. They will also play a major part in setting up and managing
the Museum’s new dedicated Education Centre, opening in
late 2007 in No. 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Our ideal candidate will be
a graduate with a minimum of two years’ experience in working
in a team environment, with excellent communication, administrative
and IT skills. Advertisements for the post will appear
on our website (www.soane.org) at the end of February.
Mention of the new Education Centre in No. 14 Lincoln’s Inn
Fields reminds us of what a marvellous facility the new house will
be when it gets handed over to us in the Autumn of 2007. We are
now in the 38th week of the 56-week building contract and I
am pleased to report that we are on time and within budget.
Our builders, the old established firm of E Fuller and Sons of
Walthamstow, have completed most of the major interventions
in the building – the roof, structural repairs and the provision
of a new skylight – while services engineers are nearing the end of
their work installing electrical, security and fire prevention systems.
The scaffolding has been struck and the rooms on the upper
floors are almost complete – Fullers are gradually working their
way down the building and are now poised to embark on repairs
to the staircase and the reinstatement of the area railings and
balcony. We are also looking forward to the return of the superb
but faded mahogany doors and shutters to the first floor drawing
rooms – they are currently away being repaired and coaxed back
to life by Peter Holmes of Arlington Conservation Ltd. When we
get possession of the building later this year, the work of moving
into No. 14 and fitting it up as splendid new facilities for education
and research will take time – and money. If you would like to
know more about the sponsorship opportunities in No. 14 please
contact me or Mike Nicholson in the Development Office.
Alongside these exciting new developments, we have also been
looking at ways that the Soane Museum can help itself. Open free
to the public – as Soane himself wished – the Museum struggles
to survive even with a generous 75 per cent contribution to its
salary and running costs from the DCMS. Exhibitions, conservation
projects, research and interpretation of the house and its
collections all have to be funded by a combination of grants,
profits from shop sales, venue hire, and donations. The Museum
has long been keen to improve its shop, and sell a wider range of
Soane-related merchandise, as well as making items available to
a wider audience via our website. We are also aware that we are
seriously lagging behind in what we charge for dinners and other
events in what is surely the most atmospheric setting in London.
To help us, assisted by a generous grant from the Fidelity UK
Foundation, we hired Selina Fellows, an independent retail
marketing consultant, to carry out a comprehensive review of
the Museum’s commercial activities. Her report, received earlier
this year, will guide us in a major review of our commercial
activities. Selina has already made recommendations about
charges for venue hire which will be implemented in the new
financial year, together with improvements to the facilities
we offer. Charles Marsden-Smedley is working on ways we can
improve the Soane shop, while Selina and Susan Bogue, our
House Manager, will be developing a new range of merchandise.
It is highly possible that Fanny, the Soanes’ beloved dog, will
feature on products, alongside more serious, architectural motifs
drawn from Soane, Adam and Piranesi. Efforts are also being
made to develop licensing of Soane designs, and improvements to
the website will enable people to support the Museum by making
it easier to buy Soane products. Guided by Selina, who is now
acting as consultant to the Museum, there is much we can do
sympathetically and stylishly to exploit the huge popularity of
Soane and his Museum – all the while remaining true to our
founder’s wishes and its precious and idiosyncratic atmosphere.
Once again, all these initiatives cost money. If anyone is interested
in helping the Museum help itself, or has good practical ideas,
please contact me or the Soane Development Office.
Finally, you will have noticed that this quarter’s Newsletter
is sent to you with leaflets promoting one of our sister organisations,
the Victorian Society. This is part of a reciprocal agreement
with these worthwhile causes – they will promote the Soane
Supporters’ Circle in their mailings. None of your personal details
have been given out to other organisations, it just makes sense
that we should help promote each other. Hopefully, Soane
Supporters will be interested in supporting their important
work too.
tim knox
Fanny, a Favourite Dog
by James Ward, 1822
(detail )

The death of Peter Thornton on 8 February marks the end of an
era and is a particular sadness to those of us who had the
privilege of working under him at the Soane where he was
Curator from 1984 to 1995. Arriving from the V&A, where had
worked as Keeper of Furniture and Woodwork since 1966, he
was the first non-architect to become Curator, taking over from
Sir John Summerson.
Peter instigated and oversaw a huge programme of repair and
restoration at the Museum, combining his formidable expertise
with a detailed study of Soane’s watercolour views, early inventories
and photographs to return the interiors to their original
state. Among the rooms he meticulously restored, re-creating
their original colour schemes and arrangements of objects, were
the two Drawing Rooms, the Picture Room, the Study and
Dressing Room (which he narrowed to their original dimensions),
the Dome area, the New Picture Room, the Ante-Room and the
No. 12 Breakfast Room.
Other key projects undertaken by Peter included the instigation
of a new cataloguing programme and the creation of a purposebuilt
gallery for temporary exhibitions. The new Soane Gallery,
designed by Eva Jiricna, was opened in 1995, the year of his
retirement.
No one who worked for Peter will ever forget him. His enthusiasm
was boundless and the distinctive three rings on the front
Soane commissioned this picture, showing a group of pensioners
from the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, in 1834. Soane was Clerk of
Works of the Hospital and the scene shows pensioners describing
the battle of Corunna, which took place during the Peninsular War
on 16 January 1809, between the British under Sir John Moore and
the French army led by Marshal Soult. Soane perhaps recalled just
such a discussion – in 1809 he was overseeing the building of the
Infirmary at Chelsea.
In September the picture returned to the Soane after a period of
almost seven years during which its fragile frame with its complex
composition (plaster) mouldings was conserved and repaired by
Clare Kooy-Lister. The work was carried out over a prolonged
period in order to spread its cost to the Museum.
The first stage in the restoration was to strip later layers of
gold paint and varnish from the frame, revealing the original gilt
surface and showing that about 40 per cent of the decorative
mouldings on the frame were crude replacements.
All the mouldings, except for those at the mitres (corners)
were removed from the frame, so that the gesso ground could be
repaired (about 75 per cent of it was missing). All the original bits
of decorative moulding then had to be re-attached and Clare then
recreated the missing bits – taking moulds from the surviving
sections and casting new pieces.
peter kai thornton 1925–2007
doorbell which signalled his arrival in the Museum usually
unleashed a whirlwind of activity! As the Soane’s activities
continue to expand it is a measure of his achievement that the
principles of authentic restoration he laid down still underpin
everything we do here. What’s more, the cataloguing projects and
exhibition programme initiated by Peter are now central to the
life and work of the Museum. helen dorey
A full tribute will appear in the Soane Annual Report
Photograph: Lena Spindler
House and Collection
conservation of the frame of george jones’ s
the smoking house at chelsea hospital
Soane hung the picture in the Morning Room on the second
floor to where it will return once this room is restored and opened
to the public. helen dorey
The frame of The Smoking House at Chelsea after conservation

a notorious portrait of sir john soane:
discovery of a surviving fragment
In the Morning Chronicle 1 May 1836 a report of the destruction
of a portrait of Sir John Soane by Daniel Maclise appeared under
the headline ‘Singular Outrage on a Picture’.
The portrait had been commissioned in 1834 by the
Committee of the Literary Fund, ‘wishing to pay Sir John Soane
a compliment in acknowledgement of his liberal patronage’.
Soane sat for Maclise several times between 9 July and 3
September. The picture was completed, as far as the Literary
Fund knew to the satisfaction of Soane, framed and hung on the
walls of the Fund’s rooms. Correspondence in the letters pages
of the Times in May 1836 records what followed. W C Taylor,
writing on behalf of the Literary Fund, explains that Sir John
Soane’s dissatisfaction with the picture was reported to the
Committee ‘verbally’ and it was resolved by a majority after
a long debate to inform Mr Maclise of this difficulty. That
‘admirable artist and truly excellent man’ replied that his design
in presenting the portrait was simply to serve the institution
and willingly agreed to its being replaced by another. Maclise
suggested that the picture be returned to him as he had received
from Soane ‘no intimation of his desire to possess the same’.
Copies of this letter and of the Committee’s resolution to this
effect were supplied to Soane officially but he did not ‘deign to
reply’ either to the Committee or to Maclise. Two months later
at the Committee’s March meeting ‘a person claiming to represent
Soane’ announced that unless Soane ‘obtained the picture
immediately and unreservedly he would withdraw his patronage
from the institution, withhold an intended bequest and
appeal to the public’. Mr Taylor reports that he gave notice
of a motion marking the committee’s sense of such menace
and insult but ‘the Saturday night before my motion could be
discussed a Mr Jerdan gained admission to the rooms and
destroyed the picture’. He adds that he is resolved to place the
whole history of the matter before the public to demonstrate
that neither the committee nor the institution ‘would stoop
to accept money by the sacrifice of principle’. He adds that ‘a
person obtaining admission to a house at a late hour of the
night and wilfully destroying property . . . [is] guilty of felony’.
The Mr Jerdan who destroyed the picture was William Jerdan
(1782–1869), the editor of the Literary Gazette from 1817 to 1850.
The question of whether or not he was acting on Soane’s
behalf will probably never be resolved: no Soane diaries survive
for 1836.
Helen Dorey discovered a fragment of the portrait amongst
the Maclise material in the archives of the V&A at the end of last
year. This melancholy remnant is titled ‘Sir John Soane’s Thumb’
and accompanied by a note (perhaps in Maclise’s hand) setting
out the sad tale of the portrait and its destruction. By looking
at an etching of Soane by Maclise, presumably after the lost
portrait, it is possible to see where the thumb was placed. The
etching was published in Fraser’s Magazine in 1836. It may have
been the distribution of the etching which led to comments
being made to Soane about the unflattering nature of the image.
The text accompanying the fragment mentions that ‘Sir John
being blind or nearly so could not judge of its merits himself.’
helen dorey
An etching of the notorious Maclise portrait of Soane Soane’s thumb – the surviving fragment of the destroyed Maclise portrait

museums and galleries month 2007
This year, in May, the Soane Museum will once again participate
in Museums and Galleries Month, an annual celebration
organised by the Museums Archives and Libraries Council. This
year’s MGM theme, ‘People – who are we?’, is more than
usually accommodating and elastic, and the Soane is taking
the opportunity to take a look at portraits, heads and masks
in the museum. From the anguished Roman marble fountain
Exhibition News
mask – the Soane’s very own Bocca della Verità – in the
Colonnade, to Soane’s own sardonic countenance in his bravura
portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence in the Library-Dining Room,
visitors to the Museum are surrounded by ‘graven images’ of
people. During May, a free leaflet will invite visitors to follow
a trail exploring the stories behind the masks.
tim knox
a passion for building: the amateur architect
in eighteenth-century england
In May the Museum opens a new exhibition exploring the great
English tradition of the amateur architect. The exhibition will
celebrate the most gifted, inventive and eccentric amateurs of
the 18th and early 19th centuries with a selection of drawings,
engravings and portraits gathered from Soane’s collection
and other museums, archives and private houses around the
country. Thanks to a grant from the Designation Challenge Fund
the exhibition will travel to two other regional venues during
2007 and 2008.
‘In England more than in any other country, every man
would fain to be his own architect,’ remarked the Swiss J A
Rouquet in 1755. Thomas Worsley (1711–78) was the epitome of
this new breed of amateur. When appointed in 1760 by George
III to the political post of Surveyor General of the Royal Works,
Worsley’s love of building was matched only by his passion
for horses. He rebuilt his Hovingham Hall in Yorkshire so that
his guests would enter through a grand riding school attached
to stables.
The exhibition identifies pockets of the country, such as
Oxford and Yorkshire, where the influence of amateurs was
particularly effective, and is full of great personalities, including
the eccentric pugilist parson Sir Thomas Parkyns (1662–1741)
who built Bunney Hall, Nottinghamshire in a wild Baroque
style; Ada Augusta Byron, Lady Lovelace, only daughter of the
poet, one of the pioneers of computer science and architect of
This year promises to see the Soane Supporters’ Circle making
a greater impact on fundraising for the Museum. Whilst the
number of new subscribers continues to rise, many existing
Supporters are also helping by renewing their memberships for
another year, which is very good news. And with online support
on its way, we are confident that the amount of money raised
by the Supporters’ Circle will increase dramatically in 2007.
The recent repair work to the beautiful chandeliers in the
North and South Drawing Rooms and the restoration of the
18 May to 1 September 2007
Soane Supporters’ Circle
Ashley Combe, a romantic rambling antique Roman retreat on
a Somerset cliff top; or the fabulous Sara Losh, whose church,
cemetery, and mausoleum at Wreay in Cumbria raise her to the
heights of genius and invention.
This exhibition will showcase over 30 drawings, engravings,
portraits and books. The curator and author of the catalogue
is the distinguished architectural historian John Harris, the
leading authority on English 18th-century architecture, assisted
by Robert Hradsky. The exhibition was instigated by the late
Dr Giles Worsley and will be affectionately dedicated to his
memory.
An amazing engraving
of Theodore Jacobsen’s
design for Portsmouth
Royal Hospital
frame for the important oil painting by George Jones, The
Smoking House at Chelsea (see Museum News), are examples of
projects with which the Soane Supporters’ Circle is able to help.
These might seem like small undertakings in the greater scheme
of things, but the care of these important items can all too
often be overlooked. We are delighted that, with Supporters’
help, we will be able to continue and expand our programme
of restoration, conservation and repair.
claudia celder, development officer

tivoli recess boost
Following the recent grant of £100,000 from the Wolfson/DCMS
Challenge Fund towards the recreation and refurbishment of
the Tivoli Recess – ‘London’s lost gallery’ – I am pleased to report
a generous donation of $100,000 from the Deborah Loeb Brice
Foundation. This means that we are just over halfway with our
fundraising for this project with another £150,000 still to be
raised. If you would like to help with this project or know anyone
who might be interested in becoming involved in any way, please
let me know.
bar and bench
As part of the Museum’s programme to foster better links with
our neighbours, we recently hosted a reception for Barristers
and Judges from surrounding Chambers. The evening was a great
success with over 70 members of the Bar attending to hear a
talk by Soane’s biographer, Gillian Darley, and enjoy a tour of the
Museum. In the library, guests were able to view a fascinating
display of material relating to the history of Lincoln’s Inn Fields
and the surrounding area. The event attracted many new members
to the Supporters’ Circle as well as stimulating interest in hiring
the Museum for dinners or receptions.
Development News
library catalogue project
An anonymous donor has kindly donated £35,000 to help the
Museum to employ a librarian to work on completing the
cataloguing of Soane’s Library, and making this information freely
available online. The Museum now has two years of funding in
place for this post but still needs to raise funds for the third year.
If there are any keen bibliophiles who might be able to help with
this important project, we would like to hear from you.
new york gala
Following on from the success of the Gala in November 2005,
Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation are organising a second
Gala on 25 April. This will take place in the Rainbow Room on
the 75th floor of the Rockefeller Center in New York. The last
Gala raised over $100,000 for the Museum and we hope that this
next one will be even more successful. The UK Ambassador to
the US, Sir David Manning will be among the honoured guests.
Tickets for the event cost $600.00 and are still available. I know
that our friends in New York will give a particularly warm
welcome to visitors from the UK who are able to join the
party – or perhaps you have friends or colleagues in New York
who might like to attend. Please contact me for further details.
For further details about any of the above projects or to discuss how you might be able to help the Museum,
please contact Mike Nicholson, Development Director, 020 7440 4241 or mnicholson@soane.org.uk
A Mexican room from Description and History of the Taste of Leading Nations by J F F Racknitz, one of the
books already in the online catalogue
sir john soane’ s museum, 13 lincoln’ s inn fields, london wc2a 3bp
Tel: 020 7405 2107 Website: www.soane.org