Plate from Richardson's 'Architectural Remains'

The item is one of a series of lithographs on Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture (see Bibliography). It is a reproduction by Richardson of several drawings by John Thorpe (c1565-1655) in his book of drawings in Sir John Soane's Museum. It shows plans of five different buildings, most of them designed or altered by Thorpe. They are Buckhurst House at Withyham in East Sussex (the design for this house as shown here was never actually executed), a theatre at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire, the Palais du Luxembourg in Paris, and a house at Ampthill in Bedfordshire. Around the border of the plate are several columns and various decorative architectural details.