Design for a Doric garden seat pavilion in Surrey: elevation, 1775

John Yenn RA (1750 - 1821)

RA Collection: Art

This is a design made for an unknown gentleman with a country house in Surrey, for a garden bench within a stone classical style pavilion. The building elevation is shown backing onto a wooded landscape. Yenn exhibited this drawing at the Royal Academy in 1775; it is an excellent example of architectural draughtsmanship and luxurious landscape painting that earned him admiration by colleagues and visitors.

The long bench, showing a pair of tapering legs, is raised on a four-step platform within a square elevation of widely paired Doric columns and pilasters beneath a frieze with Greek key decoration, and an upper entablature decorated with swags and drops, and an apex of a sculpted urn containing olive branches. The rear wall of the interior has a low cornice and four panels; two are filled with anthemion decoration.

Yenn's use of gouache in this drawing for highlighting the landscape and sky makes the picture unusually luminous in contrast with the matt rendering of the building. To the left of the pavilion, Yenn gives a sensation of depth by showing a view through the trees down a path to a small meadow opening in the woods. For his signature and the date,Yenn boldly used white gouache on a red border.