John Harris, ‘The grey wash style of the Palladian Office of Works’,The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. XII, 2002, pp. 48–58 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 2002 THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS JOHN HARRIS n when Prunella Hodgson and I were architecture on paper. There was nothing like it Icompiling a ‘roneoed’ catalogue of the Jones, before, nor much comparable elsewhere in the Office Webb and Burlington drawings in the Burlington of the King’s Works in the period – , and Devonshire Collection, I speculated upon a nothing after in the Office until the Wren–Hawksmoor recognizable ‘grey wash style’ of certain neo-Palladian partnership. A many-coloured coat is a characteristic drawings in the period c to c . I then thought, of what succeeded the professionalism of Webb, ‘Was it a coincidence that a coterie of leading which might be described as the age of the architects connected to the Georgian Office of Works gentleman-architect: Sir Roger Pratt, Hugh May, seemed to have adopted this as an office drafting William Samwell, William Talman, or indeed Sir style?’ I should explain the technique. It is pen and John Vanbrugh, all were untrained in the organization light grey wash applied to plans and elevations in a of the drawn design upon paper. It was not in the very meticulous and precise way. Black pen outlines manner of things that a gentleman should become an are washed in with the utmost care. The precision apprentice in these matters. seems to belong to an engraver’s technique. When I Now Colen Campbell’s name could also have examined a variety of French designs of the same been added to that list of earlier gentlemen-architects. period, although they rigidly conformed to rules laid By c he may have been making the transition down by the Bâtiments du Roi in the use of coded from lawyer to architect, possibly applying himself by colours for certain functions, there was a private pupilage to James Smith. In Campbell technicolour of options for the general use of wash on blatantly used a design by Smith for Shawfield elevations and plans. This technicolour variety is also Mansion, Glasgow. Lack of drafting skill is evident in characteristic of certain English architectural drawings, Campbell’s submissions in June to the notably provincial ones, of the Stuart and Williamite Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches (Fig. periods. The colouring seems to follow no rational ). If we had to isolate a year when we sense a rules. Red, blue or yellow might be used simply to watershed towards the achievement of the grey wash jolly up the presentation. It struck me in that this style, it might be , the date of Colen Campbell’s sparse, grey or grisaille style admirably represented design (Fig. ) for Wanstead House, Essex, as the austerity of Burlingtonian Palladianism. I suppose engraved in the first volume of his Vitruvius I ought to have sought the possible origins of this Britannicus , a publication advertised in June grey technique then, but I did not. and published in April . Certainly by , if not The circumstances that brought Inigo Jones the somewhat earlier, Campbell must have begun the painter to architecture, and begat John Webb as the great task of re-drawing what would amount to nearly first professionally trained architect in this country, two hundred plans and elevations for Henry created a revolution in the presentation of Hulsburgh the engraver. There is no evidence that THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS Fig. Colen Campbell, two proposed designs for the Fifty New Churches. RIBA Library Drawings Collection. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS Fig. Colen Campbell, proposed plan for Wanstead House, Essex, . RIBA Library Drawings Collection. he had any assistance in this, although it is tempting and the application of wash. His mentor was surely to suggest that Hulsburgh himself guided Campbell. Henry Flitcroft, who is recorded as ‘first’ at The challenge was to produce drawings whose Tottenham in July and is the draughtsman of a drafting quality would be reflected in the engraving new Tottenham design dated (Fig. ). after transference to copper by the burin. This was What were Flitcroft’s credentials? As a labourer the means by which he became a master of this grey in the gardens of Hampton Court, his father Jeffery wash style. By this task he unshackled himself from had lowly connections to the Office of Works. On the provincial Smith. November Henry was apprenticed for seven A design (Fig. ) for Lord Bruce’s Tottenham years to Thomas Morris, joiner of London, thus Park, Wiltshire, has been published as the first presumably achieving his release in November . attempt at design by Lord Burlington, yet another The transition into Burlington’s employ may well gentleman-architect. This incompetently delineated have been through the influence of Morris, who was and muddily washed-in elevation must have been paid by Burlington £ in part on October , made in , or before February , when Bruce and another £ on June , payments for married Burlington’s sister. The British Vitruvius of work at Chiswick almost certainly under Campbell’s later years could not yet draw properly. It would be supervision, for Campbell was then also engaged by some while before he mastered the technique of line Burlington upon Burlington House. The suggestion THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS Fig. Lord Burlington, proposed elevation for Tottenham Park, Wiltshire, c . Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection. Fig. Henry Flitcroft, proposed elevation for Tottenham Park, Wiltshire, . Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS Fig. Henry Flitcroft, proposed plan and elevation for the Tuscan temple by the water at Chiswick House, Middlesex. RIBA Library Drawings Collection. that Flitcroft was the unnamed workman, ‘that broke grey wash style, as we find with the Temple by the his leg by a fall from the scaffold’ in , can now be Water at Chiswick (Fig. ). We might also see a dismissed, as that workman was called John window here to the wider aspect of Campbell’s Smith. It can only be hypothetical that Flitcroft introduction of this style due to his appointment as moved from employ by Campbell at Chiswick to that Chief Clerk and Deputy Surveyor of the King’s Works of Burlington, but it seems likely. Payments to him in in September , albeit for a brief nine months. Burlington’s accounts commence December There is a second sequence or axis to the . From then on he acted as Burlington’s Campbell–Flitcroft–Burlington one, namely that of draftsman, office manager, and clerk of works until Campbell–Thomas Ripley-Isaac Ware at Houghton. . Nearly all Burlington’s rougher or sketched Ripley had been appointed to Houghton in , designs are apparently redrawn by him in perfect presumably as clerk of the works to James Gibbs. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS Fig. Colen Campbell, proposed elevation for Houghton Hall, Norfolk, . RIBA Library Drawings Collection. Fig. Henry Flitcroft, survey elevation of Fig. William Kent, elevation and part plan San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, before . of a proposed royal house, . RIBA Library Drawings Collection. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XII THE GREY WASH STYLE OF THE PALLADIAN OFFICE OF WORKS Ware was apprenticed to Ripley in August . hand, as are all the measures and inscriptions. The It would only be natural that the youthful Ware prevailing view that Kent was but a witty delineator would be brought into this great project. Following incapable of the routine of the drawing board must Gibbs’s dismissal, Campbell’s earliest inscribed be rejected. The Office style was further designs (Fig. ) are dated , his latest , by strengthened by Ware, for shortly before he had which time he had been succeeded by William Kent. finished his apprenticeship in August he had It might have been here at Houghton that Ware could been appointed Clerk Itinerant and [significantly] have learnt of the grey wash style from Campbell’s Draughtsman in the Works, a post secured through drawings. He would become a perfectionist in this. the patronage of Ripley. At almost the same time he The wider spread of the style through the Office moved into Burlington’s orbit, possibly through of Works is due to Burlington’s patronage. Flitcroft is having met Kent at Houghton. His new job was to the conduit from Campbell, spreading the style redraw Palladio’s reconstructions of the Roman through the Office following his appointment in May Baths for Burlington’s edition of his Fabbriche as Clerk of the Works at Whitehall, Westminster Antiche , dated . In this matter it was not a grey and St James’s. But before that, from about , he is wash style that Ware espoused, but a browny-sepia engaged upon a work of drawing that was to have as wash, demanded by Burlington in his desire to great a drafting influence as Vitruvius Britannicus : facsimilize Palladio’s wash. the redrawing of the designs by Jones and Webb There is a third axis: Campbell–Roger purchased by Burlington from John Talman in May Morris–Office of Works. In Morris is very likely . Within a year of acquisition Burlington had to have been the bricklayer involved in the building ordered Henry Hulsbergh to commence the of the Library wing at Narford in Norfolk, where Sir engraving, of perfect drawings made by Flitcroft Andrew Fountaine as an amateur architect may have (Fig.