MS 681 15 03 01

MS 681 15 03 01

Drawings of Octavius Moulton-Barrett: Drawing of ruins of Houses of Parliament

Item

c.1840

2 items

Watercolour drawing by Octavius Moulton-Barrett of ruins the Houses of Parliament after the fire of 1834 when Octavius was a young man; and on the reverse, pasted down, a pencil and pastel drawing of the interior of an unidentified church

A volume of Octavius Moulton-Barrett’s drawings of the Houses of Parliament while under construction and while he studied under Sir Charles Barry – was given by his family to the nation, and are now in the UK Parliamentary Archives: GB-061 MOU. Barry's office was one of the largest in London for its period and many future architects were trained there. It seems probable that Barry encouraged his pupils to compile a collection of architectural drawings, mostly by copying or tracing designs for buildings then under construction, to serve as examples once they had left his office and set up an independent practice. Frequently these collections were made up into pairs of volumes, one devoted to Gothic style buildings and one to Italian style buildings. Such volumes were made up by Octavius Moulton-Barrett, James Murray (1818-1898) and G P Kennedy This Gothic volume is undoubtedly one of the finest. It is almost exclusively devoted to the New Palace of Westminster and contains a few original drawings by Charles Barry and A W N Pugin.

The Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection – SA 46: hold a volume from Sir Charles Barry’s office drawn by Octavius Moulton-Barrett. These drawings are described in the RIBA Drawings Collection Catalogue (Volume ‘B’) The Moulton-Barrett Volume was an 'office scrap book' by OMB who appears to have collected a large number of both original Barry sketches and tracings of drawings. It was presented to the RIBA by a Miss Moulton-Barrett in 1960, a descendant of OM-B.

RIBA Drawings Collection Catalogue (Volume ‘B’)