[28] Unfinished design for a ceiling for the second drawing room, 1773, possibly excuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Town houses
  - London
    - Ashburnham House, 19 Dover Street, London, for John, 2nd Earl of Ashburnham, c1773-76 (47)
      - Alternative preliminary design and unfinished designs for a ceiling for the second drawing room, c1773 (3)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 12/131

Purpose

[28] Unfinished design for a ceiling for the second drawing room, 1773, possibly excuted

Aspect

Plan of a rectangular ceiling, with a central rectangular compartment ornamented with an octagonal figurative scene, and this is set within a band of enclosed rosettes and surmounted by anthemia and calyx. Beyond this there are half-paterae set within semi-circular compartments flanked by fans, and all enclosed within a circular band of reed and ribbon. All this is surrounded by recumbent, winged sphinxes linked with semi-circular bands of calyx and flanked by arabesques and fans set within semi-circular bands of calyx. All this is set within an oval band of husks, segmented by oval cameos surmounted by anthemia, and with aprons of festoons suspending peltoid shields and wreaths enclosing rosettes. The central compartment is set within a band of enclosed anthemia, and this is flanked by narrow strip compartments ornamented with enclosed rosettes and calyx

Scale

bar scale of ¾ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

Cieling of the 2.d Drawing room at Ashburnham House- / 131 / 3 [_ _ _ _ _ _ _] [_ _ _ _ _] (pencil) / & yellow (pencil) / Dark Green / [_ _ _ _ _ _] [_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _] & Pink & Green (pencil) / Light Green (pencil) / Light Pink (pencil) / Dark Brown & Etruscan yellow (pencil) / Dark Green [_ _ _ _] (pencil)

Signed and dated

June 1773
Adelphi / 30.t June 1773.

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and coloured washes including olive green, cerulean blue, Indian yellow, pink and Indian red on laid paper (514 x 405)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Giuseppe Manocchi

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 36
King, 2001, Volume I, p. 298
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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