In the early years of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the majority of buildings on its present South Kensington site were temporary or inherited structures: these included the so-called Brompton Boilers and Brompton Park House respectively (see E.1321-1927). The first exception was the Sheepshanks Gallery (now the V&A Bookshop and Rooms 91-93 above; elevations since rebuilt), a two-storey, seven-bay building erected in 1856-8 to house a collection of paintings, mostly contemporary works, which had been gifted by John Sheepshanks. The brick-clad building was designed in a north Italian Renaissance style, with a decorative external appearance incorporating ornamental brickwork, round-headed windows and double-height colonettes - which functioned as rainwater drainage pipes - reaching from the spring of the first-floor arches down to the ground floor. This drawing comprises two unexecuted designs for the bands holding the pipes against the façade at the point between the two storeys (see also 216-1889 and 216B-1889). Redgrave, who had organised the British art entry to the Universal Exhibition in Paris of 1855 and held a number of positions in the Art Training School or Art School (the institution for which the collection later housed by the Victoria and Albert Museum was first established), would be an influential force in shaping the young Museum.