Design for a coach house
- Object:
- Place of origin:
London, England (probably, made)
- Date:
- Artist/Maker:
Sir Edwin Lutyens, born 1869 - died 1944 (artist)
- Materials and Techniques:
Pen and ink and watercolour on paper
- Museum number:
- Gallery location:
Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F, case EDUC, shelf 10, box B
- Image in copyright
The five drawings on this sheet are for a coach house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1891-1892. They include a watercolour sketch, pen-and-ink plans of the ground and first floor and two pencil sketches for a lamp and a bracket. The coach house was for Munstead Corner, a house Lutyens had been commissioned to design in Surrey. The scheme was modelled on the vernacular architecture of the area, with stone walls, exposed timber and tiled roofs. It was one of Lutyens’ earliest commissions and he was careful to impress his client with beautiful little designs such as these. While most such designs were kept in a sketchbook, these drawings are on a loose sheet of personal stationery (the printed address is that of Lutyens’ family home in London). Possibly this reflects the ancillary status of the coach house.
Physical description
Five drawings on one sheet in pen and ink and watercolour, and pencil. The top drawing is a perspective view of a coach house, with green coach doors, red roof and exposed timbers. Two pen and ink plans of the coach house are shown below. Below this are two pencil sketches of a lamp and a bracket. The sheet is printed with the architect's address and it has been folded previously.
Place of Origin
London, England (probably, made)
Date
1891-1892 (made)
Artist/maker
Sir Edwin Lutyens, born 1869 - died 1944 (artist)
Materials and Techniques
Pen and ink and watercolour on paper
Marks and inscriptions
16 Onslow Square,/ London S.W./ ..............189/ re...................
Harness/ K./ Sculy/ Stairs/ External stair/ Coach house/ C/ C C = cupboard?
Bed/ Bed/ Bed/ Bed/ Loft
Dimensions
Height: 25.6 cm, Width: 20.6 cm
Descriptive line
Design drawing for a coach house at Munstead Corner, Surrey, by Sir Edwin Lutyens, 1891-1892
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Christies Sale Catalogue, Tuesday 11 December 1990, p.66
From his earliest years, Lutyens was inspired by the vernacular architecture of Surrey cottages: these ideas were stimulated by Randolph Caldecott, a neighbour of the family, who drew enticing Surrey cottages in illustrating such well-known narrative poems as 'The House that Jack Built'. Lutyens used to say that Caldecott's drawings first turned his eyes to architecture. Probably Birket Foster and Helen Allingham were also influential on Lutyen's early picturesque style, as both these artists painted the timber-framed tile-hung buildings that were so admired by architects in the 1880s....Lutyens...did his early work at his father's house, 16 Onslow Square (the loose drawing of the stables is on headed paper from this address). The sketchbook [E.1-1991, and loose drawing E.2-1991] therefore represents one of his earliest commissions: the patron was C.D.Heatley, introduced to him by Gertrude Jeckyll, whom he had met in May 1889. The house was known as Munstead Corner, now renamed Munstead Place....M. Richardson sums up the significance of the sketchbook on in the Hayward exhibtion catalogue: 'At this stage Lutyens had the imagination to draw the sort of house he wanted to build, as can be seen from the Munstead Corner sketchbook, but he was as yet ignorant of the degree of distribution and simplification needed to achieve it. He saw the rightness of old Surrey building methods, and no doubt was especially aware of examples of 'sublime signification', achieved in ordinary cottages and barns for utilitarian reasons...As realised the house is harsh and rather large with flat half-timbered gables on a Bargate stone base in Shaw's 'Old English ' Style.
Materials
Paper; Watercolour; Pen and ink
Subjects depicted
Houses; Architecture; Revival
Categories
Architecture; Drawings; Designs
Collection code
PDP
