Joseph Gandy

The recorded working language is English. Piranesi is recorded as an influence. Places of work recorded in the authority are London, Europe and Rome. Work by Joseph Gandy is recorded in the collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Tate, Yale Center for British Art and Sir John Soane's Museum.

• Name — Joseph Gandy • Born — 1771 • Birthplace — London, England • Died — 25 December 1843 • Place of death — Devon, England • Known for — Painting • Patrons — Sir John Soane • Honorific Suffix — ARA

Joseph Gandy was the son of Thomas Gandy (1744–1814) and Sophia née Adams (1743–1818). His father was employed at White's Club, London. Joseph was the brother of the architects Michael Gandy (1778–1862) and John Peter Gandy, later Deering (1787–1850). In 1801, he married Eleanor Susannah Baptist née Webb (1773–1867), daughter of Thomas Webb and Catherine née Wiggington. Among their children, Mary Gandy (1810–1888) married Francis Impey (1812–?) attorney, son of Vice Admiral John Impey RN (1772–1858); and Thomas Gandy (1807–1877), portrait painter, married Catherine née Hyde (1811–1889); they were great grandparents of Robin Gandy.

During the rebuilding of White's in 1787–1788, Gandy came to the notice of architect James Wyatt, who took him into his office. Gandy entered the Royal Academy School in 1790. In 1794, he travelled to Italy (with another young architect, Charles Tatham) at the expense of John Martindale, proprietor of White's, and remained there until the advance of Napoleon's army in 1797. Returning to England, he found employment as a draughtsman in the office of Sir John Soane. He practised on his own from 1801 and in 1803 was elected ARA, perhaps through Soane's influence.

• Illustration — Joseph Gandy, The Origins of Architecture, Soane Museum, London • Illustration — Gandy, cut-away perspective drawing of Soane-designed Bank of England as a ruin, 1830, Soane Museum • Illustration — Gandy, ancient Greek city of Lebadeia (modern Livadeia), 1819, Tate Britain Gandy built little in his career, having a reputation as a difficult individual to deal with. His work included the Phoenix Fire and Pelican Life Insurance Offices (1804–1805, destroyed c. 1920) in London; the gallery at Doric House at Sion Hill in Bath for Charles Spackman (1818); and the remodelling of Swerford Park house in Oxfordshire for General Bolton (1824–1829). In the intervals between these works he was employed by Soane to make watercolour perspectives of his architectural designs. Commercially he was a failure and served two terms in a debtors' prison, but his published and exhibited work was largely a critical and popular success. In 1821 he published two articles in the Magazine of Fine Arts on The Philosophy of Architecture. He intended to expand upon this subject in an eight-volume work entitled Art, Philosophy and Science of Architecture, of which his unpublished manuscript survives. His paintings show a dramatic use of two-point perspective and architectural precision, and also reflect his (and Soane's) fascination with Roman ruins. His architectural fantasies owe a clear debt to Piranesi and play upon historical, literary and mythological themes, with a feeling for the sublime that is the equal of his contemporaries J. M. W. Turner and John Martin.