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Purpose
Aspect
To the left there is an elevation containing two windows, with a dado ornamented with festoons and a band of guilloche. The windows have cornices ornamented with a band of laurel leaf tips and surmounted by anthemia, and above this there is a frieze of masks set within roundels. The pier contains a table with turned feet and wrapped legs. The table frieze is ornamented with festoons and rosettes, and there is an apron of foil and a band of laurel leaf tips above. The table is surmounted by an oval mirror frame flanked by terms and surmounted by a wreath flanked by festoons and rosettes, all set within a panel. Above this there is a frieze of fluting and a figurative panel
Opposite there is an elevation containing a pair of jib doors with dados ornamented with festoons, and these are flanked by paired Corinthian pilasters with ornamental panels. Between the doors there is a bookcase with a dado ornamented with festoons, and above all this there is a frieze of arabesques and further semi-circular compartments. Above the compartments there is a central panel containing half-rosettes, and this is flanked by figurative tablets, with a frieze of masks set within roundels above
Opposite the principal entrance there is an elevation containing two bookcases and a false bookcase forming a hidden door. The bookcases have dados ornamented with festoons, and they are flanked by paired Corinthian pilasters with ornamental panels. The bookcases have a frieze of arabesques, and surmounting this there are semi-circular compartments, with an ornamental panel flanked by figurative tablets and a frieze of masks set within roundels above
Scale
Inscribed
Signed and dated
- May 1773
Adelphi May 23.d 1773.
Medium and dimensions
Hand
Office hand, possibly Giuseppe Manocchi, with title inscription in the hand of William Adam
Literature
King, 2001, Volume I, p. 298
For a full list of literature references see scheme notes.
Level
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).