Soane amassed a huge collection of works on paper, some displayed in the rooms but many more stored in the Research Library for study purposes. Along with the ongoing programme of remedial conservation, involving the team, a consultant paper conservator and curators, we are replacing some of the more fragile works on display with facsimiles.
Written by Jane Wilkinson, Head of Conservation
An exciting and unexpected discovery was made while the conservation team were treating works of art for a restoration project.
As part of this project, we were carrying out conservation on the framed works from the North Drawing Room when we opened up the frame of Interior of a Sepulchral Chapel for the Duke of York, 1827 (P282) by Joseph Michael Gandy.
This work of art appeared never to have been opened since it was framed in the 1820s. We found the watercolour had been attached to a piece of canvas and placed on a stretcher – as if it was an oil painting. This was not so surprising as it is something we have found with other watercolours here, however, more intriguingly, we discovered that the back of the stretcher had been protected with layers of what looked like scraps of paper, all pasted to each other to create a kind of papier-mâché board.
Because we thought there might be something on the undersides of the scraps, we decided to separate the pieces. Lorraine Bryant, our consultant paper conservator, first removed the ‘papier-mâché’ board, using poultices to soften the adhesive. This was a very delicate and lengthy process. Lorraine then humidified the pasted sheets in a bath of water to separate them.
Imagine our delight when we discovered that there were twelve separate pieces of paper, all of which had architectural drawings on them! In some instances, sheets had drawings on both sides. There were plans, elevations and sketches, all evidently from Soane’s own drawing office. Apart from the thrill of this discovery of previously unknown drawings the find has also provided new insights into the workings of the office, showing that Soane used his students to frame works for him, and that drawings for schemes were readily discarded when superseded by new designs. The drawings are for the Bank of England, the museum itself and other schemes not identified.
It’s interesting to note that paper, an expensive material in the Regency period, was often carefully re-used. The point of covering the back of the stretcher in this way seems to have been to protect the Gandy watercolour, and this was successful as the back of the canvas supporting the work remained very clean, and the watercolour is in good condition. This method of backing the canvas seems to have given greater protection against pollutants than the more common way of framing watercolours with wooden backboards.
