[3] Alternative design for the principal (west) front of the house, 1789, unexecuted

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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 29/62

Purpose

[3] Alternative design for the principal (west) front of the house, 1789, unexecuted

Aspect

Above- Elevation of a two-and-a-half-storey, seven-bay building, with a preliminary proposed hipped roof, and with rustication at the ground storey level. Across the central bay there is a Doric portico, with a frieze of fluted triglyphs, surmounted by a balustrade. Beyond this there is an entrance with a fan light, and this is flanked by semi-circular headed windows set within relieving arches. Above this, across the central three bays, there is a one-and-a-half storey portico, with fluted Corinthian pilasters and a frieze of rosettes, all surmounted by acroteria supporting statuary Below- Part-plan of the ground storey of a seven-bay building, with a proposed addition of a single-bay portico across the central entrance

Scale

bar scale of 1 1/4 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

Design for altering the West front of Ruscomb House / (and in the hand of William Adam, underwritten in pencil) the seat of Lord Chief Baron Eyre / C

Signed and dated

January 1789
24.t Janry 1789

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash on laid paper (279 x 450)

Hand

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

Verso

Rough preliminary designs for urns (pencil)

Watermark

PORTAL & BRIDGES

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

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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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