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  • image SM Adam volume 40/69
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Reference number

SM Adam volume 40/69

Purpose

[29] Finished drawing for the octagonal dressing room, 1773, possibly executed

Aspect

Plan and laid-out wall-elevations of an octagonal room. The principal entrance is surmounted by a cornice ornamented with a rosette, and this supports an urn flanked by winged sphinxes and arabesques. Above the entrance there is a panel containing half putti and arabesques. The opposite elevation contains a chimneypiece as SM Adam volume 23/8, and this is surmounted by an overmantel mirror frame. The stiles of the frame are ornamented with arabesques, and there is a frieze of arabesques and calyx(?), and a frieze of figurative roundels. The frame is surmounted by a central anthemion flanked by arabesques. Above the mirror frame there is a panel containing half putti and arabesques, and a frieze of laurel leaf tips. A further elevation comprises of a window with a cornice ornamented with rosettes and swags, and with a frieze of laurel leaf tips above. Above the frieze there are rosettes and festoons of calyx. The elevation opposite the window comprises of an oval mirror frame with an apron consisting of drop calyx enclosed within a wreath, and the frame is flanked by half figures bearing festoons of calyx. Surmounting the frame there are arabesques forming a scrolled heart, a wreath, a rosette, and swags. Above the frame there is a panel ornamented with half putti and arabesques, a frieze of laurel leaf tips, and a central rosette flanked by festoons of calyx. The elevations containing the window and mirror are flanked by elevations containing panels / doors, set within niches. The panels / doors are surmounted by friezes of rosettes and urns flanked by winged griffin. Above the niches there are panels containing half putti and arabesques, friezes of laurel leaf tips, and rosettes flanked by festoons of calyx

Scale

bar scale of 2 ¼ inches to 5 feet

Inscribed

Section of the Dressing Room of the Library / at Sir Watkin Williams Wynns House is St James’s Square (all in the hand of William Adam) / Light Green Walls (pencil) / [_ _ _ _ ] dado (pencil) / D. Green Plinths (pencil)

Signed and dated

  • February 1773
    Adelphi Febry 10.t 1773

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured washes including verdigris, pink and Indian yellow within a single ruled border on laid paper (653 x 665)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly William Hamilton or Joseph Bonomi, with title inscription in the hand of William Adam

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 49
King, 2001, Volume I, p. 276
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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