Although Soane’s architectural collections had always been one of the Museum’s principal strengths, his theme, as he expressed it, was the ‘union of the arts’.
In the Description of his residence Soane states:
‘One of the objects I had in view was to shew, partly by graphic illustration, the union and close connexion between Painting, Sculpture and Architecture – Music and Poetry; – another purpose is the natural desire of leaving these works of Art subject as little as possible to the chance of their being removed from the positions relatively assigned to them; they having been arranged as studies for my own mind, and being intended similarly to benefit the Artists of future generations’.