Pen and brown ink and gray wash on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 7 3/4 x 13 1/8 inches (19.7 x 33.3 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in pen and brown ink, upper center: "The Plan of the first Design for Moody Hall"; in pen and brown ink, center: various inscriptions indicating sections of house; lower center: a scale indicating measurements.
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Peter N. Lindfield, Georgian Gothic: Medievalist Architecture, Furniture and Interiors, 1730-1840, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK ; Rochester, NY, p. 56, fig. 2.3, NA966.5.G66 L56 2016 (LC) (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
This ground floor plan of Moody hall is one of a pair; the other (B1975.2.118) has a variant plan and elevation. Although inscribed as “The Plan of the first Design for Moody Hall,” no Moody Hall has been identified and there is no evidence of its construction. The designer is also unidentified. Although the building displays characteristics consistent with Batty Langley’s architecture, it may be the work of a provincial architect copying from Langley’s Gothic pattern book Ancient Architecture Restored (1742). The publication features foliated crowning ornaments similar to that included here on the architraves and pediment, and plate 47 of the book features a “Gothick Temple” with the same ogival pediment pierced by a trefoil window and crowned with a foliated finial. The ground floor plan is for a three-story, five-bay house between office wings. The plan circulates around a central stairwell, a library and a common parlor occupying the entrance front, and a kitchen and parlor in canted bays at the rear. The office wings consist of buildings surrounding an open court. The house’s Gothick front elevation is on drawing B1975.2.118. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2014