Fig. 40.—SKETCHES FOR PARTS OF THE PALACE AT WHITEHALL, including two for the “Persians.” The sketches and writing are by Webb’s hand.
From the Chatsworth Collection, by kind permission of the Duke of Devonshire.
The scheme, however, is truly remarkable.[30] It is of vast size; the buildings and courts would have covered an area of some 23 acres (Fig. [39]). They would have extended from the Charity Commission’s offices, south of the Banqueting House, to within a hundred feet of Craig’s Court on the north; and from Whitehall Court on the east, right across the Horse Guards parade and up to the enclosure of the park on the west. They are skilfully disposed, with great architectural magnificence. The noble Banqueting House was to be incorporated, but it was to be one of the minor features. There were to be seven courts; the largest, in the middle of the building, was 732 ft. long by 370 ft. wide; the four corner courts, each 280 ft. by 180 ft.; one of the courts was to be circular, 220 ft. in diameter, and its columns were to be fashioned in the likeness of venerable men in flowing draperies, called Persians, as distinguished from the female figures which, fulfilling a similar purpose, were called Caryatides.
All these particulars can be gathered from Kent’s published version. He gives plans, elevations, and sections, but he gives no internal features save the insignificant matters inherent in the sections. Webb’s drawings, on the other hand, include not only sketches for the general plan and for detailed portions of it, not only sketches for external features, and among them several alternatives for the Persians, but also the working out of lobbies, staircases, chapels and the like (Figs. [40], [41]). It is true that these details are part of one of the preliminary schemes, but they show how seriously he took his work, and how thoroughly he had mastered the details of classic design. These sketches are unmistakably Webb’s; there are none by Jones relating to the designing of the palace. It is interesting to compare Webb’s large plan for Whitehall with Philibert de l’Orme’s plan for the Tuileries, which has two oval courts set within larger ones. Webb may have got his idea of the circular Persian court from this source, and indeed the whole plan may have been a help to him, possibly; but his scheme is far larger and more elaborate than De l’Orme’s and is treated in a different style.
The appearance which the building would have presented from the river is well shown in Thomas Sandby’s drawing (Fig. [1]), hitherto unknown. The view is supposed to have been taken from the gardens of old Somerset House previous, of course, to the erection of Waterloo Bridge. It is the most poetic rendering of the great scheme which has been attempted. It is founded on the version published by Kent, so far as the river front is concerned, and on one of the other seven designs in respect of the front facing to the right of the spectator. On the original drawings this front is considerably longer than Sandby makes it, the lower portion being more than half as long again; a good idea may thus be obtained of the magnitude of the conception.
Admitting to the full the great skill and knowledge which the designs display and which prove that Webb was not unworthy of the august influence which placed him under the tuition of Inigo Jones, it is nevertheless no great matter for regret that the palace was never built. It can hardly be held that the complete design maintains the high standard of the Banqueting House. Much of it indeed verges on the commonplace. So vast a building would have been a burden on any monarch; it would inevitably have fallen from its high estate, and would probably have drifted to being put to such ignoble uses as was the much smaller palace of the Louvre in Paris. If fate had been less relentless it might eventually have been devoted to some public use for which it was ill-contrived—public offices or a museum. Architecture, although apparently the most permanent of all the arts, suffers most from change. Buildings may remain, but the uses for which they were designed either cease or are so modified that the buildings become unsuitable. Then follows degradation, decay, or even destruction: at the luckiest, a diversion from the original purpose. The Banqueting House itself is a case in point; for who among those who inspect the interesting collection it now contains have any notion of why it was built, or can picture, even faintly, the scenes enacted within its walls?
Fig. 41.—SKETCHES FOR PARTS OF THE PALACE AT WHITEHALL, by Webb.
From the Chatsworth Collection.
