Inscribed
Inscribed in ink 127
Signed and dated
- Undated, possibly September 1755.
Medium and dimensions
Pencil, pen; grey, blue and brown washes253 x 305
Hand
Robert Adam
Watermark
grapes
Notes
This view by Robert Adam is the same as that by Charles-Louis Clérisseau in Adam vol.57/123, although it lacks the fortified scene in the background. Like that of Clérisseau, Adam's view is probably derived from several antique sources, and it may relate to Adam and Clérisseau's trip to Albano in September 1755. It may have been inspired by ruins of mausolea such as that then known as the Tempio della Salute or Tomb of Licinianus Piso on the Via Appia, which is illustrated in Piranesi's Vedute di Roma, 1763. An alternative source may be the Domus Praeconum on the Via dei Cerchi of the Domus Augustiana (see E. Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, London, 1968, vol.I, p.338). The sculptural relief panel shown here is absent in Clérisseau's view and in the Domus Augustiana.
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,
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
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