LEGACY
Art in the midst of law
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Soane’s museum is a worthy monument to an extraordinary collector. NIVEDITA CHOUDHURI
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Photo: Martin Charles
Inspired by Roman ruins: Busts, cinerary urns, and fragments of sculpture and architecture in the Dome.
IT’S hard to imagine Lincoln’s Inn Fields in London as being anything but quiet and pleasant. The peaceful locality is home to many lawyers who work in the vicinity as well as the Royal College of Surgeons.
Located at the heart of this legal enclave is the remarkable Sir John Soane’s Museum, the brainchild of one of England’s most imaginative architects. The museum was originally Soane’s home. John Soane (1753-1837) was the son of a bricklayer near Reading in Berkshire. He was appointed architect and surveyor to the Bank of England in 1788. The Bank was his main pre-occupation until his retirement in 1833 but his other masterpieces, Dulwich Picture Gallery and Pitzhanger Manor at Ealing (his country house), are also noteworthy.
Making of a museum
Soane designed and built his first house at No.12, Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1792-94, which is now part of the museum. Needing more space for his collections, he purchased and rebuilt No.13 next door, where he lived until his death. In 1824, he also rebuilt No.14 using the back of its site as an extension to his museum.
Soane negotiated an Act of Parliament to settle and preserve the house and collection for the benefit of “amateurs and students” in architecture, painting and sculpture. The Act came into force on his death in 1837, the year of Queen Victoria’s accession to the throne.
A small crowd was athered in front of the museum when I arrived and I wondered whether my journey had been wasted. As if in response, a portly gentleman opened the door and ushered in four people. He gave the new arrivals a fleeting look and said we would have to wait as only a limited number of people were allowed inside the museum at a time.
I understood why when I was ushered in. Soane’s collection of sculpture casts and antiquities are packed into every nook and cranny and the authorities fear they may be knocked down if too many people are let in at once. I was told by a rather severe-looking lady not to “swing my handbag” and to take off my coat and deposit it near the reception counter.
The house reflects Soane’s obsession with ancient Rome, as huge pieces of carved marble seem to defy the confines of the relatively small rooms. Soane used the Dining Room, which I first entered, to entertain guests and as a library for some of his 7,000 books. The “Pompeian red” of the dining room walls is probably based on a fragment of wall plaster he pocketed when visiting the excavations at Pompeii. The two Apulian vases, Cawdor Vase and Englefield Vase, and Cantonese chairs made of padouk wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl are exquisite.
The most famous works in the Picture Room are the two series by William Hogarth (1697-1764): “A Rake’s Progress” and “An Election”. “A Rake’s Progress” depicts the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell who inherits a fortune from his miserly father and squanders it away on the pleasures of fashionable society. “An Election” is a political satire and was announced to coincide with a General Election. Hogarth chose to illustrate electoral malpractices in Oxfordshire, notorious for its corruption.
Two Indian scenes — one of “Futtypoor Sicri” by William Hodges, the first of the British professional landscape artists to visit India in the late 18th century — also caught my attention. I passed next to the basement Crypt, which was intended to have an atmosphere reminiscent of Roman burial chambers or catacombs. The Sepulchral Chamber contains the sarcophagus of King Seti I (1303-1290 BC), one of the most important Egyptian antiquities ever to be discovered. Egyptologist Giovanni Belzoni discovered the sarcophagus in the Valley of the Kings and Soane purchased it in 1824 after the British Museum refused the price of £2,000. Soane celebrated its arrival with three evening parties. He invited nearly 1000 people and hired more than 300 oil lamps to illuminate the building.
The Colonnade has hardly an inch of space that is not occupied. A female torso from the frieze of the Erectheion, a temple on the Acropolis in Athens; Roman marble statues of Aesculapius, God of health; and Diana of Ephesus stand on the pedestals either side at the far end. The arrangement of classical busts, cinerary urns, and fragments of sculpture and architecture in the Dome was probably inspired by Giovanni Piranesi’s engravings of dramatic scenes of Roman ruins.
Hopes for posterity
The Breakfast Parlour at No. 12, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, was built when the collection was at an embryonic stage and Soane’s hopes for posterity were founded on his sons, John and George. They appear in Joseph Gandy’s view of the Parlour in 1798, aged 12 and nine respectively. This watercolour was the principal piece of evidence in the restoration of the room 10 years ago.
Soane had hoped to found a dynasty of architects but he was deeply disappointed by the conduct of his sons. John did not share his father’s passion for architecture and died in 1823. George led a dissolute life. Soane believed that George’s blows when he reportedly ridiculed his father’s architecture in two newspaper articles in 1815 caused his wife’s death.
Soane’s museum is a worthy monument to the extraordinary collector who assembled it all. It is a fascinating tale of a man who triumphed over his humble origins and left behind a rich legacy for all to enjoy.
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