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Introducing Thomas Laine: draughtsman to Sir Christopher Wren

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Anthony Geraghty
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Extract

In a letter of November 1694, Sir Christopher Wren set down some thoughts on the purpose and benefits of drawing:

It was observed … that our English Artists are dull enough at Inventions, but when once a forreigne patterne is sett, they imitate soe well that commonly they exceed the originall. I confess the observation is generally true, but this shows that our Natives want not a Genius, but education in that which is the Foundation of all Mechaniek Arts, a practice in designing or drawing, to which every body in Italy, France, and the Low Countries pretends to more or less.

For Wren, drawing was more than a means of depicting a design, but a process which facilitated the conceptualization and refinement of a design. It was by ‘drawing’, he believed, that skill in ‘invention’ was most effectively acquired; hence his regret that native craftsmen lacked an ‘education’ in ‘designing or drawing’. He continues the letter by suggesting that drawing, as ‘the Foundation of all Mechaniek Arts’, might ‘usefully’ be included in the education of the young:

I cannot imagine that, next to good writing, anything could be more usefully taught your Children, especially such as will natually take to it, and … have a natural genius to it, which it is a pity should be stifled.

Type
Research Article
Information
Architectural History , Volume 42 , 1999 , pp. 240 - 245
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1999

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References

Notes

1 Wren Society, XI, p. 74. These words are contained in a letter to Nathaniel Hawes, Treasurer of Christ’s Hospital, London. They find a remarkable parallel in Sanderson, William, Graphice: The use of the Pen and Pencil, or, The Most Excellent Art Of Painting (London, 1658), p. 28 Google Scholar.

2 Wren Society, XI, p. 74.

3 For WoodrofFe, see Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (New Haven and London, 1995), pp. 1077-78Google Scholar.

4 For Oliver, see ibid., pp. 714-15.

5 The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-1680, ed. by Robinson, H. W. and Adams, W. (London, 1935), p. 259 Google Scholar. The possibility that this refers to a piece of furniture should not be discounted.

6 For the Painter-Stainers’ Company, see Englefield, W. A. D., The History of the Painter-Stainers Company of London (London, 1923)Google Scholar.

7 Guildhall Library (hereafter cited as GL), MS 7857/1 (St Dunstan-in-the-East, Parish Registers, 1558-1653).

8 Croft-Murray, Edward, Decorative Painting in England 1537-1817, 2 vols (London, 1962-70), 11, p. 235 Google Scholar.

9 For Williamson’s association with the Painter-Stainers’ Company, see Englefield, History of the Painter-Stainers, p. 224.

10 GL, MS 5667/2, Part 1 (Court Minutes of the Painter-Stainers’ Company), p. 99.

11 Ibid., p. 95.

12 GL, MS 5669/1 (Painter-Stainers’ Company, Register of Apprentice Bindings, 1666-1795), fol. 30.

13 Wren Society, XIX, p. 18; Wren Society, XIII, pp. 164-67, 175-76, 178.

14 GL, MS 5668 (Painter-Stainers’ Company, Register of Freedom Admissions, 1658-1820) is incomplete before c. 1680.

15 GL, MS 25543 (an account of miscellaneous expenditure on the City churches), pp. 12-33. The references to Laine contained in a fair copy in the Bodleian (MS Rawlinson B. 389) are cited in Colvin, Howard, ‘The Church of St Mary Aldermary and its rebuilding after the Great Fire of London’, Architectural History, 24 (1981), pp. 24–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (p. 24).

16 Sutnmerson drew attention to a group of ‘many’ drawings of London churches ‘in a hand which may be that of Andrew Philips, Wren’s clerk’ ( Summerson, John, Sir Christopher Wren (London, 1953), p. 83 Google Scholar). In the light of the payments to Laine, this attribution can now be rejected.

17 Compare, for example, Wren’s presentation drawings for Trinity College Library (All Souls l. 45-47; reproduced in Wren Society, v, plates 23-24).

18 See, for example, Wren’s unfinished section for St Magnus-the-Martyr reproduced in Architectural History, 13 (1970), Fig. 19.

19 The churches worked on by Laine are listed in Wren Society, x, pp. 46-53.

20 GL, MS 5669/1, fol. 51.

21 Two entries in the unpublished section of Hooke’s diary may referto Laine. On 11 March 1680/1 Hooke records a meeting with ‘Lane about Graver’, whilst in October 1682 he either paid or received a sum of money ‘for pen ink Lane. 10.’ (GL, MS 1758, The Diary of Robert Hooke, 1672-83, under dates cited). The published section of the diary contains many references to a ‘Mr. Lane’ (Tlie Diary of Robert Hooke, pp. 52, 61, 78, 144, 165, 297, 318, 364, 368, 381, 392, 407, 417, 439, 449, 451, 459) but these probably refer to a namesake who was ‘Comptroller’ of the City of London (Wren Society, x, p. 112).

22 GL, MS 25539/3, St Antholin, p. 8; GL, MS 25539/3, St Augustine, p. 4. Laine witnessed two payments to other craftsmen on the same occasion (GL, MS 25539/3, fol. 21; GL, MS 25544/7, p. 123).

23 GL, MS 25543, p. 33.

24 GL, MS 7587/3 (St Dunstan-in-the-East, Parish Registers, 1676-1766).

25 Hawksmoor is first documented in Wren’s office on 19 January 1683/4, when he witnessed, together with Leonard Gammon and John Tough, the will of Hugh May (Public Record Office, Prob. 11/375, sig. 32 (Hare) ). He next appears on 9 May 1684, when he witnessed a handful of payments to craftsmen engaged on the City churches (GL, MS 25544/7, pp. 22, 168, 209).