Lot Essay
Castle Howard was the first in Britain of Sir John Vanbrugh's baroque country houses. It was begun in 1699 for Lord Carlisle, after designs by William Talman had been rejected. The playwright's sudden emergence as an architect surprised society. The question often asked is how the professional Nicholas Hawksmoor, in effect the executant architect, modified and altered the early designs for Castle Howard. These designs have been exhaustively discussed by three successive scholars: Laurence Whistler in The Imagination of Vanbrugh and his Fellow Artists, 1954; Kerry Downes in Vanbrugh, 1977; and more recently by Charles Saumarez Smith in The Building of Castle Howard, 1990. All the first elevations demonstrate the transition from a rather clumsy, static, block-like house extended by lower wings resembling orangeries, to a baroque pyramidal composition marked by a central dome and enlivened by roof-works, or what Hawksmoor called 'eminencies'.
Most of the designs under discussion were sold from the collection of the Marquess of Bute, Sotheby's 23 May 1951, and acquired for the Victoria and Albert Museum. These additional drawings are from the same collection and therefore had become detached from the Victoria and Albert Museum corpus before 1951. Both are for the garden or south front and should be compared with the early proposal without any roof works in Saumarez Smith, pl.10. They are in Vanbrugh's hand, precious evidence of his direct involvement in architectural design circa 1700. In the upper illustration the centre block and wings are terminated by heavy, rather clumsy, panelled parapets; in the lower illustration the parapets have been eliminated, roof works increased, and a dome appears. The composition is being jollied up, and perhaps Hawksmoor was at Vanbrugh's elbow. At this early stage there is a notable lack of integration of the dome with the body of the house. A rough pencil sketch shows the development of wings.
In the history of baroque architecture in Britain there can be few documents of more importance.
We are grateful to John Harris for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
Most of the designs under discussion were sold from the collection of the Marquess of Bute, Sotheby's 23 May 1951, and acquired for the Victoria and Albert Museum. These additional drawings are from the same collection and therefore had become detached from the Victoria and Albert Museum corpus before 1951. Both are for the garden or south front and should be compared with the early proposal without any roof works in Saumarez Smith, pl.10. They are in Vanbrugh's hand, precious evidence of his direct involvement in architectural design circa 1700. In the upper illustration the centre block and wings are terminated by heavy, rather clumsy, panelled parapets; in the lower illustration the parapets have been eliminated, roof works increased, and a dome appears. The composition is being jollied up, and perhaps Hawksmoor was at Vanbrugh's elbow. At this early stage there is a notable lack of integration of the dome with the body of the house. A rough pencil sketch shows the development of wings.
In the history of baroque architecture in Britain there can be few documents of more importance.
We are grateful to John Harris for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.