[1] Design for the principal (west) front of the house, 1789, possibly executed

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Country houses
  - Ruscombe House, Berkshire, designs for alterations to a house and for offices for Sir James Eyre, 1789, possibly executed (12)
    - Designs for the west, north and south fronts of the house, 1789, possibly executed (5)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 29/60

Purpose

[1] Design for the principal (west) front of the house, 1789, possibly executed

Aspect

Above- Elevation of a two-and-a-half-storey, seven-bay building, with a preliminary hipped roof, rustication at the ground storey level, and a string course of Vitruvian scroll. Across the central three bays there is a two-and-a-half-storey pedimented portico, with a Doric screen across the central entrance. The screen has a frieze of rosettes and fluted triglyphs. Above this there is a balustraded Ionic pilaster screen, surmounted by a lunette flanked by paterae. The portico has a fluted frieze with a central tablet containing rosettes enclosed within a band of guilloche, and with an apron of guttae. The tympanum is ornamented with a central shield, flanked by festoons, and is surmounted by acroteria bearing statuary Below- Part-plan of the ground storey of a seven-bay building, with proposed additions including a portico across the central three bays. The central entrance leads to an apsidal hall, which provides access to a parlour (south) and a second room (north), both square in plan

Scale

bar scale of 1 1/4 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

Design for altering the West front of Ruscomb House / (in the hand of William Adam) the seat of Lord Chief Baron Eyre / A / Extends 64 feet / Hall / Parlor and some dimensions given

Signed and dated

January 1789
24t Janry 1789-

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash on laid paper (253 x 441)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Daniel Robertson or Robert Morison, with part title inscription in the hand of William Adam

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index, p. 27
King, 2001, Volume I, p. 393; Volume II, p. 13
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.

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