Historic Royal Palaces invites Soanians to join them for a talk this coming week . . .
29 March 2016
Tidbits from
Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation
The Banqueting House
and the Court of James I
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Talk byWENDY HITCHMOUGH
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Tuesday, 12 April 2016
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6pm to 8pm - Talk and Reception
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LOCATION:India House Club, One Hanover Square, New York City
TICKETS: $25 - Advance Tickets Required - please purchase online
via PayPal (scroll down to this event, click on the PayPal link, enter ticket fee in donation amount).
ATTIRE: The club web site states: "Business Casual"
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You are invited to the court of James I. The year is 1619 and it begins with a dramatic fire that consumes the Banqueting House at Whitehall Palace and everything in it in the space of two hours. Inigo Jones seizes his opportunity to design its spectacular replacement.
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Join Dr. Hitchmough as she explores the Stuart dynasty and the Banqueting House as a site of power, diplomatic receptions and decadent masques and parades.
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A NOTE ABOUT SOANE: Sir John Soane (1753 - 1837) referred warmly to Inigo Jones's architecture in his lectures as Professor of Architecture at the Royal Academy, remarking on Jones's 'superior knowledge in architecture'. His connection with Jones began as a nineteen year old student, when Soane used the opportunity given by scaffolding on the Banqueting House for its repair in 1773 to measure the facade and produce a drawing which won for him the Royal Academy Silver medal (which still hangs in the Breakfast Room of No.12 in the Soane Museum). He could not have dreamt then, that he would be the architect chosen for its restoration over half a century later in 1829-33. The project involved restoring and largely re-facing the facade - and acquiring for his Museum, during the process, one of the original, much decayed pilaster capitals.
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DR. WENDY HITCHMOUGH is Head of Historic Buildings and Research at Historic Royal Palaces (HRP). She is an art historian, currently working on the Banqueting House, Whitehall and the representation of Classical architecture in a group of early Stuart portraits of Inigo Jones's royal and aristocratic patrons. Prior to HRP she was Curator and Deputy Director at Charleston, the Bloomsbury artists' home in East Sussex.
