Scale
1 module (60 minutes) to 4 ½ inches (drawn scale along base of plan, in divisions of 5s and 15s)
Inscribed
In pen and brown ink, at top of left-hand plan, MO - 1 ½ — ; and below, at base of diagonal line, MO -1; and at top of right-hand plan, MO - 1 - Mi - 25 - ; and below, at base of diagonal line, Mi - 56 ½. A separate small sheet of laid paper, glued to the mount below the drawing (13 x 90 mm), is inscribed in pen and brown ink in a C17-18 hand, Inigo Jones
Signed and dated
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink with grey wash on pencil under drawing, and ruled pencil line around edge of sheet (for trimming); on laid paper, 350 x 223.
Hand
Unidentified late 17th-century English
Watermark
small bunch of grapes
Notes
The drawing is a study for a Corinthian capital with alternative profiles. The elevation corresponds to the plan on the right-hand side; the left-hand plan illustrates the capital with a more deeply projecting bell and abacus. It is 1 ½ modules wide compared with 1 module 25 minutes or 1 5/12), this wider proportion being found in the Corinthian capitals in Palladio's Quattro Libri (1570) and Scamozzi's L'Idea della architettura universale (1615). The detailing of the capital is similar to those in both treatises. A scale of minutes, in groups of 15, is marked along the base of the plan, two units of 15 corresponding to the half diameter of the shaft of the column at its base. The wider splay in the left-hand plan results in the two lines of leaves being set further forwards than those on the right. There is no obvious published source for the more narrowly splayed capital in the elevation and the right-hand plan. The drawing could be the work of master mason. A distinctive trait of the hand is the number '5' without a horizontal top stroke. The use of a scale of minutes related to inches suggests an English draughtsman.
Level
Drawing
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