Inscribed
Inscribed in ink in a contemporary hand, top: Sansovino Sculpt... from a Marble Frize in the Church of the Madonna del popoli; lower left: in the Vatican. Gio. d'Udine pinxt.; lower right: in the Vatican. Gio. d'Udine pinxt. and Lodovico Tesi delin.t
Signed and dated
Medium and dimensions
Pen, white and gold heightening on blue washed paper
280 x 544
Hand
Ludovico Tesi
Watermark
Countermark
Notes
This drawing is the counterpart to Adam vol.26/202 and both were possibly acquired by James Adam in Rome. Both are described on the bound list as 'Remove'd from Volume 14, when it was rebound in 1913'; the handwriting is that of Walter Spiers (Sir John Soane's Museum curator 1904-17), who produced a catalogue of the Adam volumes in 1909 that included these drawings in volume 14. They were presumably transferred here because they were considered the odd-men-out in a volume otherwise composed of ceilings and wall decorations by Robert Adam. However, the two drawings attributed to Ludovico Tesi were with schemes of Giuseppe Manocchi (c.1731-82) (see Adam vol.14/96-103 and 14/106-110), and Tesi may have had some connection with Manocchi. The English inscription on both drawings suggests they were made with the British market in mind. Spiers may also have had some reason or evidence for associating these two drawings with James Adam, apart from their connection with the Vatican logge. Tesi was a relation of the more distinguished Mauro Tesi (1730-66) whom James Adam probably met in Bologna in 1760 (see J. Fleming, Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh & Rome, London, 1962, p.275). Alternatively, he may be Ludovico Tesi, 1731-82, who was a pupil of Pompeo Batoni (1708-87).
For Jacopo Sansovino (1486-1570)'s work in Rome, see Bruce Boucher, The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino, 2 vols., London, 1991.
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
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).
