Octagonal Temple at Shotover Park, Oxfordshire: Plan, Section and Elevation
Date:
ca. 1738
Materials & Techniques:
Brown wash, pen and brown ink, and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 11 1/4 x 12 3/8 inches (28.6 x 31.4 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in graphite, lower right: "D"; inscribed on verso in pen and black ink, center right: "Coll: Tyrrell | in Oxfordshire"; in pen and brown ink, center right: "WK"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05)British Architectural Drawings (Yale Center for British Art) (Yale Center for British Art, 1982-04-21 - 1982-05-30)Country Houses in Great Britain - Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 1979-10-10 - 1980-01-29)
Publications:
Country houses in Great Britain., Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1979, p. 71, no. 54, N6764 Y34 1979 (YCBA)Susan Weber, William Kent, designing Georgian Britain , Yale University Press, 2013, pp. 395, 396, fig. 15.5, NJ18.K364 W53 2013 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 135, no. 113, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA)John Wilmerding, Essays in honor of Paul Mellon, collector and benefactor : Essays, , National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC & Hanover, NH, 1986, p. 147, fig. 12, N7442.2 M455 1986 (YCBA)Eric R. Wolterstorff, British architectural drawings, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn., 1982, p. 15, no. 19, V 0251 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
In 1718, James Tyrrell (ca. 1674–1742) inherited Shotover Park in Oxfordshire and commissioned William Kent for work on both the house and gardens. Among Kent’s additions was an octagonal temple on a mound at the southern end of Shotover’s Wilderness Garden, for which this is a design. As in this drawing, the temple as executed consisted of a simple octagonal room faced with rustication on the four principal sides and covered with a domed roof. The drawing exhibits Kent's penchant for both small detail and broader, gestural strokes of brown wash. The marginalia, showing a grotesque between acanthus leaves, is also characteristic of Kent but, as in his other drawings, it is unclear whether this detail corresponds with the design or if it is an unrelated drawing from another project added to the sheet for the purposes of convenience or ornament. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2014