[40] Finished drawing for an alternative design for the ceiling for the library, 1769, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Country houses
  - Luton Park, designs for a house and interiors including an organ case for John Crichton Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, c1763-72 (56)
    - Finished drawing for an alternative design and design for a ceiling for the library, 1769 (2)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 12/20

Purpose

[40] Finished drawing for an alternative design for the ceiling for the library, 1769, unexecuted

Aspect

Plan of a rectangular, apsidal ended ceiling formed with five compartments, and with two further apses on one long side. The central square compartment is ornamented with a figurative roundel, enclosed within a band of fluting, with panels containing arabesques and calyx, flanked by bands of calyx, beyond. The panels are surmounted by enclosed semi-circular panels ornamented with sphinx, griffins and hydra, and beyond this there are rosettes enclosed within roundels, alternating with calyx supporting scrolled hearts and tubular flowers. The square compartment has corner fans, is bordered by guilloche enclosing rosettes, and is flanked by bands of scrolled hearts. Beyond this there are rectangular compartments containing a central patera enclosed within a fan ornamented with calyx. The fan is enclosed within oval bands of double guilloche, festoons of calyx and wreaths enclosing rosettes. Beyond this, drop calyx suspends cameos with aprons of calyx and anthemia. The rectangular compartments have an apsidal end, and this is bordered by a band of guilloche. The apse is ornamented with a half-patera, and this is bordered with panels ornamented with half-paterae, arabesques supporting cameos and urns. The panels terminate in fans and are flanked by bands of drop calyx. The rectangular compartments are flanked by square compartments, with a central figurative roundel enclosed within a band of rosettes, and set within a symmetrical cross. The cross is ornamented with arabesques bearing urns, and is bordered by a band of fluting. Beyond this there are winged half-putti, alternating with rosettes and enclosed within festoons. Below the half-putti, drop calyx suspends figurative roundels with aprons of calyx and anthemia. The roundels alternate with suspended panels containing griffins, sphinx and hydra. The apsidal ends are bordered by reed and contain a half-patera enclosed within a fan ornamented with calyx. Beyond this there is a band of rosettes, and rosettes enclosed within festoons of calyx, and drop calyx suspending peltoid shields

Scale

bar scale of 3 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

Design of a Cieling for the Library at Luton not executed

Signed and dated

1769
1769

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil wash and coloured washes including verdigris, pink, cerulean blue and Indian red within a single ruled border on laid paper (1197 x 434)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Giuseppe Manocchi

Verso

Dr 1 / 12 / 20 (modern curatorial hand, pencil) / Adam 12/20 (modern curatorial hand, pencil)

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index, p. 21
King, 2001, Volume I, pp. 22, 122, 122 n.20
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).