Inscribed
Inscribed in pencil in a contemporary hand Tombeau de Vergile; in ink 16.
Signed and dated
Medium and dimensions
Pen, pencil, grey and brown washes198 x 304
Hand
Charles-Louis Clérisseau
Verso
Pencil sketch of profile of an architectural moulding, with dimensions.
Notes
Virgil's ashes were placed in a tomb outside Naples on the Via Pluteolana, originally between the first and second milestones. The tomb subsequently disappeared and in 1554 the following inscription was placed there: 'Qui cineres? tumuli haec vestigia: conditur olim/ Ille hic qui cecinit pascua, rura, duces'. Robert Adam's drawing in Adam vol.57/21 is taken from the same spot as this drawing by Charles-Louis Clérisseau but lacks the depth given by the latter's introduction of the distant view over Posillipo; there are also adjustments of scale and detail. In Paoli, Avanzi Delle Antichita Esistenti a Pozzuoli Cuma e Baja, Naples, 1768, pl.X shows a plan and interior view of the tomb by Natali that is contemporary with this drawing and that in Adam vol.57/21, which serves to show the various adjustments made by both Clérisseau and Adam where they have strengthened the architectural form of the mausoleum. In April 1755 Adam noted that 'It [the tomb] is now almost quite ruinous and is only beautiful from its antiquity', which may explain his architectural adjustments (National Archives of Scotland, Edinburgh, Clerk of Penicuik Collection, GD18/4769). A print of a similar view by Domenico Cunego after Clérisseau was issued in London in 1766.
Level
Drawing
Exhibition history
The Adam Brothers in Rome: Drawings from the Grand Tour, Sir John Soane's Museum, London, 25 September 2008 - 14 February 2009
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,
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it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance
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