Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London: With some contemporary furnitureBurlington Fine Arts Club
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Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London: With some contemporary furniture
Burlington Fine Arts Club
Art -- Exhibitions; London (England) -- Pictorial works -- Catalogs
To right of the Tudor Cockpit is a house with tiled roof and dormer
windows, apparently that portion of the Prime Minister’s official
residence adjoining the Treasury and facing the garden, for although
much altered, the points of resemblance are strong. In vol. ii of the
Lond. Top. Soc. “Record,” Mr. Spiers attributed the design of this
building to Wren on account of a ground plan doubtless representing
it, signed by him with the addition of the letters “Sr Gll” and
date 1677; but the present writer is of opinion that it already existed
at the time, and, being on Crown land, that Wren merely signed the
plan as Surveyor General. In the “Record” a plan by Sir John Soane
is also given, showing his additions and alterations made in 1825.
That part of No. 10 containing the entrance from the roadway does not
belong to the original structure, although they are linked together
by passages. It forms one block with No. 11, and from the style of
the pair they cannot have been built much before the middle of the
eighteenth century, when they appear in views by J. Maurer, partly
occupying the site of the building with gable and low tower, shown
in our picture to the extreme right. On this subject the late Mr.
C. Eyre Pascoe in his volume entitled “No. 10 Downing Street” was
misinformed.
In studying these old pictures it must always be borne in mind that
artists attached small importance to rigid accuracy; while fairly
correct as regards the main buildings they omitted and arranged with
the object of making an agreeable pattern. The trees in Nos. 89 and
96 differ completely, and in the latter the head of the ornamental
canal, formed soon after the Restoration, has been introduced out of
its place, quite near to the Cockpit. By it are deer, and it is covered
with waterfowl. On the bank is a copy in bronze of the Borghese statue
of a gladiator, executed at Rome by Hubert Le Sœur, removed by Queen
Anne to Hampton Court, and by George IV to Windsor. On the left King
Charles II is taking a walk accompanied by various dogs and a crowd
of courtiers. Near the buildings a detachment of soldiers in scarlet
uniforms marches to the right. The colour carried at their head agrees
with that mentioned by F. Sandwith, Lancaster Herald 1676-89, as the
ensign of the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Coldstream Guards “from 1670
or thereabout to 1683.” According to his description the ensign was
of “blue taffeta with a plain white cross, surmounted by a cross of
crimson or a cross of St. George.” Unfortunately on the scale of our
engraving neither the monarch nor this ensign are distinctly visible.
There is an illustration of the scene in Pennant’s “London” from No.
96 or a replica, and a larger one by S. Mazell. Examples of them are
in the Crace Collection, British Museum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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