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Design for finishings to the drawing room walls, as executed, May 1792

On 6 June 1792 Thomas Chawner delivered to Lady Hardwicke fair drawings 'shewing the Manner of hanging the Silk & ornaments' in the drawing room (Daybook 1792). Drawing 23 was made a month earlier but it shows the executed design for the room's grisaille overdoors and silk wall hangings. The walls have large ochre-coloured panels between vertical bands decorated with arabesque (or grotesque) motifs and on Prussian blue backgrounds. The whole is edged by a narrow cobalt blue border.

David Adshead suggests that the strong colours and antique scheme were inspired by the Roman Villa Negroni frescoes, a villa excavated in Rome in June 1777 that Soane and Lord Hardwicke knew from their travels through Italy (D. Adshead, p. 76). The design on drawing 23 was executed, though the silk fabrics have since been replaced.
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