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Reference number

SM Adam volume 14/28

Purpose

[21] Design for a ceiling for the drawing room, 1778, possibly executed

Aspect

Plan of a rectangular, tripartite ceiling, with a canted bay on one long side. The central compartment is ornamented with a figurative oval, depicting putti pulling a figure in a chariot. This is enclosed within an oval fan, ornamented with rosettes and calyx, within a further band of tubular flowers, enclosed within beading forming scrolled hearts. This is segmented by cameos of dancing figures, and has an apron of festoons, which suspend peltoid shields. The central compartment is flanked by panels, ornamented with figurative half-roundels, enclosed within a fan, with a band of calyx beyond. Above this there is a mask, flanked by festoons of beading, which suspend roundels. Each of these compartments is bordered by a band of Vitruvian scroll. The canted bay is bordered by a band of scrolled hearts, and ornamented with a half-roundel, depicting a reclining figure in a chariot, pulled by a lion. This is set within a fan, and a band of tubular flowers enclosed within scrolled hearts of beading. This has an apron of swags, which suspend further roundels
  • image SM Adam volume 14/28

Scale

bar scale of 1 inch to 2 feet

Inscribed

Design of a Cieling for the Drawing room at Mistley. / 28.

Signed and dated

  • 1778
    Adelphi / 1778.

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and coloured washes including verdigris and violet (565 x 442)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Joseph Bonomi or Robert Morison

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index, p. 22
King, 2001, Volume I, pp. 29, 249
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).