Repositories in North America
A number of North American
libraries, art galleries and private collectors have purchased British
topographical and architectural drawings and paintings. See John
Harris,
A Catalogue of British Drawings for architecture,
Decoration, Sculpture and Landscape Gardening, 1500-1900, in American
Collections (1971).
In addition some British manuscripts in American collections shed light on building history. Under present law, photocopies or microfilm of all historic manuscripts leaving Britain must be deposited in the British Library. However, manuscripts were exported before that legislation was in place, so the British Library's copy collection is incomplete.
Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania
Contains drawings of Robert Adam, Gilbert Blount (listed online), William Chambers, James Thomas Knowles, and William Butterfield.
Canadian Centre for Architecture 1920 Baile Street, Montréal, Québec
- Collection: Has a collection of British 18th and 19th-century architectural drawings. Includes an album of drawings for proposed alterations to Ockham Park, Surrey by Nicholas Hawksmoor, over 40 drawings by Robert Mylne for The Wick, Richmond Hill, City of London's Lying-In Hospital and for several villas, a Repton Red Book for Burton Park, 8 drawings for cottages by John Soane, and drawings by William Chambers for a bridge in the Chinese style at Sans Souci, Potsdam, George Dance, Charles Frederick Inwood, William and Henry William Inwood, James Paine, John Pentland, Willey Revely, and James Wyatt for Fawley Court, albums of drawings by George Richardson and John Carter.
- Catalogue: Collections Online allows the user to search the prints, drawings and photographs collections and one third of the archives collection.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Has a collection of British topographical prints. Online, searchable catalogue of images.
Folger Shakespeare Library,
201 East Capitol St., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003-1094
- Access: Restricted to those with a Ph.D., graduate students writing a Ph.D. thesis or other persons with a particular need to use the collections.
- Collection: focuses on Shakespeare and his time and includes MSS, maps, paintings, drawings and prints. MSS include the Losely papers of the More family (16th-17th century); papers of the Bacon-Townshend families (16th-17th century); the Cavendish-Talbot families (1548-1607); the Rich family (1485-1820); the Bagot family (1557-1671); the Robert Bennett papers (17th-century).
- Catalogues:
- Online catalogue Hamnet mainly contains published works, but does include the papers of the Bacon-Townshend, Bagot, Bennet, Cavendish-Talbot, Loseley, North, and Rich families, and the Trevelyon Miscellany.
- The Catalog of Manuscripts of The Folger Shakespeare Library, 3 vols. (New York 1971).
- The Catalogue of Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library (Yale, 1993).
- The Catalog of Prints, Engravings, Photographs, and Original Art Materials of The Folger Shakespeare Library, 4 vols. (New York 1984).
Harvard Law School Library, 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138
Collection: over 1,000 English deeds dating from circa 1170 to 1888, including those of the Hale family of King's Walden (Hertfordshire): online calendar; 170 English manorial rolls: online catalogue.
Huntington Library and Art Collections, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, California 91108
- Collection: One of the largest collections of
British drawings and MSS in the USA, formed by Henry E. Huntington. The
drawings and watercolours focus on 18th and 19th-century British
topography. The MSS include:
- Battle Abbey Papers: monastic accounts and records: see Descriptive Catalogue of the... Muniments of Battle Abbey etc. on sale by Thomas Thorpe (1835). An 18th-century transcript of the cartulary from this collection is in the British Library (Add MS 6344 and 6348.)
- Hastings Papers: a large number of deeds, court rolls and accounts for Leicestershire and elsewhere, and a large collection of correspondence: calendared in Report on the Manuscripts of the late Reginald Rawdon Hastings, HMC 78, 4 vols (1928-47) and Henry E. Huntington Library Hastings Manuscripts, List and Index Society Special Series Vol.22 (1987).
- Stowe Collection: early Grenville deeds, mostly for Buckinghamshire, and Temple and Grenville estate records.
- Ellesmere Collection: deeds, court rolls, and accounts, largely for Cheshire and the Northwest, the letters and papers of Egerton and the Earls of Bridgwater: briefly calendared in Eleventh Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (1887). Copies of a calendar made c.1900 are held by Cambridge University Library and the National Library of Scotland.
- The Brydges Papers include 70 letterbooks of James, 1st Duke of Chandos (early Georgian developer in Bath, London, etc.) Microfilm of some of this material is in Bath Reference Library.
- The Loudoun Collection: includes Scottish estate papers.
- Guides
and catalogues:
- C.W. Dutschke, Guide to the Medieval and Renaissance Documents in the Huntingdon Library (1989).
- The Huntington Art Collections: A Handbook.
- Robert R. Wark, Early British Drawings in the Huntington Collection, 1600-1750.
- Robert R. Wark, British Landscape Drawings and Watercolors, 1750-1850. (24 examples from the Huntington collection.)
- Robert R. Wark, British Landscape Watercolors from Southern California Private Collections.
- Robert R. Wark, Drawings by Thomas Rowlandson in the Huntington Collection.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Museum
William
Robert Ware studied European architectural education and practice
before creating the first architectural curriculum in America in 1868.
His collection of English
architectural drawings includes works by Alfred Waterhouse,
Enoch Bassett Keeling, Thomas Little, and Robert Jewell Withers.
Tufts University, Massachusetts
Edwin C. Bolles collection of publications, maps and images on the history and topography of London, which can be searched online.
University of Chicago Library
- Collection:
The papers of Sir Nicholas Bacon include:
- manorial records and deeds medieval to 18th century, mainly for an estate in Essex and Suffolk, but with some material relating to places in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.
- letters and papers of Sir Nicholas as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal December 1558-February 1579, including papers 1561-7 relating to the repair of St Paul's Cathedral, London, after a fire.
- Calendar: University of Chicago Library, Department of Special Collections. Calendar of the Martin A. Ryerson Collection of Court and Manorial Documents from the Estate of Sir Nicholas Bacon in the University of Chicago Library. Chicago: (University of Chicago Library, 1974). Also published as Papers of Sir Nicholas Bacon in the University of Chicago Library, List and Index Society Special Series 25 (1989).
Yale Center for British Art,
1080 Chapel Street, New Haven,
Connecticut
- Collection: The most comprehensive collection of English paintings, prints and drawings outside Great Britain, donated to Yale University by Paul Mellon, an avid Anglophile. It includes thousands of topographical drawings and paintings.
- Catalogues:
- John Baskett and Dudley Snelgrove, The Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson in the Paul Mellon Collection: catalogue (1977).
- Basil Taylor, Painting in England 1700-1850: Collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon (1963).
- Christopher White, English Landscape, 1630-1850: drawings, prints and books from the Paul Mellon collection (1977).
- Scott Wilcox, British Watercolors: Drawings of the 18th and 19th centuries from the Yale Center for British Art (1985).
- Catalogues of its collections are held by its sister institution Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art 16 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA.
Yale: Lewis Walpole Library, 154 Main Street, Farmington, Connecticut
- Collection bequeathed to Yale University by Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis, who collected the letters and works of Horace Walpole (1717- 1797), a leading advocate of neo-Gothic.
- Transcript: W.S. Lewis (ed), The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, 48 vols. (1937-83).
- Catalogue: The Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection includes prints, drawings, and watercolors related to Horace Walpole's collection and house at Strawberry Hill.