Inscribed
Inscribed in ink on drawing 30
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1755 - 56.
Medium and dimensions
Pen, brown and grey washes144 x 169, top left corner torn
Hand
Robert Adam
Verso
Part of an architectural diagram in pen.
Notes
The plan and the perspective do not seem to be related and this is possibly an example of Robert Adam reusing a sheet of paper, as is seen in other drawings, for example Adam vol.55/26. The two drawings would appear to have been made around the same period and this possibly underscores Adam's simultaneous lessons in architectural and landscape composition. However, the practice of the combined plan and perspective was a popular one in the later eighteenth century and can be found in several Adam schemes of the 1780s as well as in his design for a Pheasant House at Kedleston, Derby of 1759 (see L. Harris, Robert Adam and Kedleston, London, 1987, p.88; and A. A. Tait, Robert Adam: drawings and imagination, Cambridge, 1993, pl.145, fig.118). There is a similar composition in Adam vol.9/32 verso. Other examples of capricci showing landscapes are found in Adam volume 55, see Adam vol.55/51 recto and verso, but show separate landscape and architectural perspectives. The plan is of the type of pavilion found in Adam vol.9/18 and 19.
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
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