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  • image SM Adam volume 12/53
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Reference number

SM Adam volume 12/53

Purpose

[49] Design for a ceiling for the second drawing room, 1772, as executed

Aspect

Plan of a rectangular ceiling with apsidal ends. The ceiling is formed with three rectangular compartments ornamented with a central patera, set within an oval band of Vitruvian scroll, and a band of enclosed anthemia segmented by rosettes. The oval is flanked by bands of fluting, and figurative tablets set within a rectangular band of calyx. Beyond this there is a semi-circular compartment containing a tripod flanked by winged putti, and the compartment is bordered by scrolled hearts and a band of rosettes and swags, and is flanked by further swags. Beyond the semi-circular compartments there is a panel containing a half putto flanked by arabesques and a further band of fluting. The rectangular compartments are separated by a continuous band of arabesques supporting anthemia enclosed within wreaths, and this is flanked by bands of guilloche, and terminates in tablets containing urns. The apses are bordered by a band of scrolled hearts, and are ornamented with a part-patera, set within a band of scrolled hearts enclosing anthemia. Beyond this there are rosettes and festoons which suspend medallions enclosed within wreaths, and these are set within compartments in the form of fret. The apse has a border of fluting, which is separated by tablets containing rosettes and swags, which support pedestals bearing urns

Scale

bar scale of ½ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

Cieling of the 2.d Drawing room at Sir Watkin Wynn’s in S.t James’s Square- / 53

Signed and dated

  • September 1772
    Adelphi . 2.d Sep.r 1772

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured washes including pink, olive green, Indian yellow, verdigris and cerulean blue on laid paper (616 x 458)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Giuseppe Manocchi

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 49
King, 2001, Volume I, pp. 22, 277
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.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).