[8] Finished drawing for a triumphal arch, c1778, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Public buildings
  - Hyde Park Corner, London, designs for a triumphal arch, gatehouses and screens, c1778, unexecuted (18)
    - Preliminary design, finished drawings and record drawing for a triumphal arch, second design, c1778, unexecuted (7)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 28/5

Purpose

[8] Finished drawing for a triumphal arch, c1778, unexecuted

Aspect

Elevation of a triumphal arch with a frieze of arabesques, surmounted by a plinth supporting an equestrian statue of George III, and this is flanked by recumbent sphinxes. The central arch is articulated by fluted Corinthian pilasters and ornamented with a band of guilloche. The spandrels contain winged figures bearing standards, and above this there is a panel depicting a figurative chariot scene. The piers of the central arch form part of the three-bay arches which flank it. These are articulated by fluted Corinthian columns, with piers containing arched entrances surmounted by a string course, a figurative roundel, and friezes of rosettes and festoons, and of fluting. The three-bay arches are surmounted by plinths bearing statuary, with tablets depicting grotesques and military trophies set in between

Scale

to a scale

Inscribed

A Second Design of a Gateway at Hide Park Corner (in the hand of William Adam, underwritten in pencil)

Signed and dated

c1778
c1778

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash within a single ruled border on laid paper (571 x 425)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Joseph Bonomi or Robert Morison, with title inscription in the hand of William Adam

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index, p. 41
Rowan, 1988, p. 56
King, 2001, Volume II, pp. 38, 57, pl. 45
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.

Level

Drawing

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

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 Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).