Cataloguing the Soane: a change in approach
Faced with the challenge of publishing catalogues of the Soane Museum’s varied collections, Tim Knox, the museum’s director, decided to give online publication priority over books. He explains his reasons for this radical new direction.
Tim Knox, Sunday, 29th June 2008
The myriad collections of the Sir John Soane’s Museum, London – ancient and modern sculpture, plaster casts, pictures, works of art, furniture, gems, architectural drawings and models, books, drawings and prints, and other items –were bequeathed by Sir John Soane for the benefit of the public on his death in 1837 (Fig. 1). It is a closed collection; almost nothing has been added to it and very little has been alienated from it or destroyed. However, while much of Soane’s unique collection is visible to the general visitor, few are aware of the full significance and richness of our holdings; this is especially true of the books, drawings and prints in the Research Library, as well as gems and other artefacts, which constitute the museum’s unseen collections.
Since the museum’s foundation, its 11 successive Curators have sought to list and classify Soane’s extraordinary legacy, In 1986, during Peter Thornton’s curatorship, a new catalogue of Soane’s architectural library was begun by Eileen Harris and Nick Savage, while the architectural models and drawing instruments were catalogued in 1988. In 1989 a start was made on cataloguing Soane’s voluminous archive, and Lynda Fairbairn began her Catalogue of Italian Renaissance Drawings, published in 1998. Under Margaret Richardson, who succeeded as Curator in 1995, cataloguing the collections became a priority. Jill Lever’s catalogue of the museum’s drawings by George Dance, father and son, appeared in 2004. The Museum’s significant collection of stained glass, much of it in store and unknown, was catalogued by Michael Peover in a special issue of The Journal of Stained Glass in 2005.
Perhaps the most significant advance was made in 2002, when the concise catalogue, encompassing, with a few important exceptions, all the architectural drawings in the collection, was published on the Museum website (www.soane.org). Interestingly, this valuable resource has caused a drop in visitors to the Soane Museum Research Library, but those who do make appointments know exactly what they want to see, and are better informed and more demanding as readers.
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