Description
A watercolour drawing depicting a vista to the East through the central portion of a bridge, showing St Paul's and the houses of the City of London.
Thomas Sandby was born in Nottingham, served an apprenticeship as a land surveyor, and in 1741 joined the Board of Ordnance’s drawing office at the Tower of London. Two years later he joined William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland as a military surveyor but after Cumberland was appointed Ranger of Windsor Great Park, Sandby spent much of his time based in Windsor, eventually as Deputy Ranger. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768, and as first Professor of Architecture at the Academy he delivered a set of six lectures annually from 1770 until his death.
The content of these lectures evolved over the years, and the sixth lecture came to include a discussion of an idealised ‘Bridge of Magnificence’ over the Thames. Old London Bridge had been the only river crossing for centuries, but the improvements to the city’s infrastructure being carried out during the mid-eighteenth century included a campaign of bridge-building - Westminster Bridge was built in 1738-49, London Bridge was improved in 1758-62, and Blackfriars Bridge was built in 1760-69. Sandby’s ideal bridge comprised nine arches supporting a colonnade and three classical pavilions, leading from Somerset House, under construction to the designs of William Chambers from 1776, to (rather bathetically) the relatively underdeveloped south bank, and thus close to the site of the present Waterloo Bridge. He explained in the text of his lecture:
‘This design was not made with any Idea of its being carried into execution. It was composed on purpose for this lecture, to shew in what manner the River Thames might be further usefully adorned .... On this Idea I formed the design, where it would in some measure, assimilate and unite it with the new and elegant Pile of Building now carrying on at Somerset Place, where its extensive and noble Terrace would terminate with the central arch of the Pavilion over the abutment of that end of the Bridge.’
Sandby’s lecture was illustrated by about forty drawings and watercolours of the bridge, some extending up to half the width of the lecture room. This view looks eastwards from the central pavilion, towards St Paul’s Cathedral and the City; a pendant view along the axis of the bridge is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. ‘A bridge of magnificence, design’d for the sixth lecture on architecture’ and a ‘View from the entrance on the bridge’ were exhibited by Sandby at the Royal Academy in 1781, and drawings of the bridge featured in the posthumous sales of both Thomas and Paul Sandby, without enough detail in the catalogues to confirm whether any was identical with this work.
Text adapted from Holbein to Hockney: Drawings from the Royal Collection
Alternate title: 'A Bridge of Magnificence over the Thames at Somerset House'
Descriptive Medium: 'Pencil, pen and ink, watercolour'
Image Licence
All Rights Reserved
Image Credit
© Royal Collection Trust
Location
Saint Paul's Cathedral, London, England
Country
England
Tags
Category
Buildings & Architecture
TWW Comment
Part of the composition appears to be fictitious and this is not a completely accurate painting
