The South Drawing Room in its restored Turner’s Patent Yellow.
Grade I listed · Museum · Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London
The South Drawing Room at Sir John Soane’s Museum is famous for its brilliant Turner’s Patent Yellow walls. Appointed within the museum’s conservation programme, with Julian Harrap Architects, we redecorated the room using the techniques of Soane’s own decorators: the colour hand-mixed from chrome yellow and built up in glazing and stippling, so the walls hold a depth and liveliness that flat modern paint cannot give. The grained finishes were repaired and retouched to match the surviving original, and the window joinery revived with pale shellac polish and beeswax.
Where historic fabric could be kept, it was kept. One of the finest painted rooms in London, returned to full voice.
The curved end of the room, its yellow walls and curtains renewed.
Doorway and portraits, framed by the room’s warm yellow ground.
Tall windows dressed in yellow silk, overlooking Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Matching convex mirrors flanking the panelled doors.
The room seen through the doorway, the yellow glowing beyond.
At a glance
- Client: Sir John Soane’s Museum · Julian Harrap Architects
- Grade I listed
- Museum
- Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London
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