New Burlington House from the courtyard, circa 1840

Details

Sir Charles Barry, R.A. (1795-1860)
New Burlington House from the courtyard, circa 1840
signed and inscribed 'Burlington House, Piccadilly/View from the Court Yard/3.0 x 2.4= 7.0/Charles Barry/Architect' (on a label attached to the backboard) and with a further inscription 'New Burlington House/View of the Quadrangle/As executed from the Designs and/under the superintendence of Robert/R.Banks (deceased) and [Char]les Barry. Architects./Charles Barry' (on a label attached to the backboard)
pencil and watercolour heightened with touches of bodycolour
24¼ x 19½ in. (61.5 x 49.5 cm.)

Provenance

with Parker Gallery, London.

Special notice

VAT rate of 17.5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Sale room notice

Please note the attribution of these drawings should read Charles Barry Jun., (1823-1900) and not as stated in the catalogue.

Burlington House was purchased from the Cavendish family in 1854 by the Government 'for public service' but it took some years before it was established exactly what this meant, while administrations came and went. In the end, Burlington House itself was allocated to the Royal Academy, while a number of learned societies were offered accommodation in new blocks to be built round the forecourt. The Royal Academy accommodation was enlarged and altered 1866-76 by Sydney Smirke, while the new buildings, including a frontage to Piccadilly, were designed by Banks and Barry and built 1868-73. Robert Richardson Banks (1813-72) had been an assistant in the office of Sir Charles Barry (1838-47) and then went into partnership with Sir Charles's son, Charles Barry, Jnr. (1823-1900). The RIBA has drawings by Banks and Barry of c.1859 and 1864 relating to a abortive proposal to use Burlington House for a new National Gallery that was in the end built in Trafalgar Square. The present drawing is presumably one of the two by Banks and Barry exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1869, nos. 968 and 972, or by Barry alone in 1873, no. 1118, after Banks's death. The two best-known works by the partners were Dulwich College, south London (1866 onwards) and the new frontage at Burlington House shown here.
We are grateful to Charles Hind for his help with this catalogue entry.

Lot Essay

Sir Charles Barry spent six years with a firm of surveyors where he learnt the practical side of his profession, but otherwise he was largely self-taught. He took himself on an architectural tour of the Continent when he was eighteen years old and it was there that he made studies of the Renaissance architecture of Rome and Florence that became so integral to his style. The work that launched him into the public conscience was his design for the Travellers' Club on Pall Mall, built in the Italianate style. He is perhaps best known for the design competition he won in 1836 for the new Houses of Parliament, unlike the majority of his oeuvre, this building was designed in the Gothic style.

More from British Art on Paper

View All