Newly Acquired Designs by James Stuart in the British Architectural Library, Drawings Collection

Extract

In 1977 a London art dealer acquired a volume of architectural designs that were later identified as the work of two architects: James, commonly called ‘Athenian’, Stuart (1713–88) and Sir Edward Lovett Pearce (d. 1733). Pearce had close Irish family connexions, and after some association with Sir John Vanbrugh, his father’s first cousin, he had by 1726 established himself in Ireland. The Irish provenance of this volume is also confirmed by the presence of a few minor drawings by George Papworth (1781–1855), the brother of John Buonarotti Papworth and a successful architect in Ireland. It is mysterious how these two obviously disparate groups of drawings came together in one volume in the nineteenth century. Stuart had no obvious Irish connexions, so the drawings were probably not gathered in Ireland. As J. B. Papworth had professional links with the London merchant and art-trading world, the drawings may have been acquired for his own collection and subsequently passed to his brother.