[25] Design for a ceiling for the library, 1773, as executed

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Town houses
  - London
    - St James's Square, number 20, London, designs for a house and interiors for Watkin Williams-Wynn, c1772-1777 (99)
      - Design for a ceiling for the library, 1773, as executed (1)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 12/48

Purpose

[25] Design for a ceiling for the library, 1773, as executed

Aspect

Plan of a rectangular ceiling flanked by columnar screens. The ceiling is ornamented with a central figurative roundel encircled by rosettes and festoons, which suspend drop calyx, arabesques and anthemia enclosed within scrolled hearts. All this is set within a circular band segmented by figurative roundels surmounted by semi-circular compartments. The compartments are ornamented with drop calyx enclosed within semi-circular-headed bands. Beyond all this there are rosettes with aprons of arabesques and drop calyx suspending paterae, and the rosettes are linked to the figurative roundels with festoons of calyx. The roundels have aprons of arabesques, drop calyx and peltoid shields. The central rectangular compartment is bordered by a band of calyx and flanked by columnar screens with narrow rectangular compartments beyond. The narrow compartments are ornamented with a central square containing a rosette surrounded by arabesques, fans and corner paterae, and the rosette is crossed by bands of calyx. The central square is flanked by narrow panels bordered by guilloche, and further square compartments ornamented with arabesques, scrolled hearts, and rosettes all set within lozenges

Scale

bar scale of ¾ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

Cieling of the Library at Sir Watkin Wynn’s in St. James’s Square - / 48. and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

1773
Adelphi / 1773

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured washes including olive green on laid paper (586 x 407)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly William Hamilton or Joseph Bonomi

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 49
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.

Level

Drawing

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

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