[26] Design for a ceiling for the first library, 1777, possibly executed

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
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  - London
    - Roxburghe House, Hanover Square, London, designs for a house and interiors for John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe, c1775-79 (55)
      - Design for a ceiling for the first library, 1777, possibly executed (1)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 14/30

Purpose

[26] Design for a ceiling for the first library, 1777, possibly executed

Aspect

Plan of a square ceiling with an apsidal end. The ceiling is ornamented with a central figurative roundel enclosed within a band of Vitruvian scroll, and this is set within an octagonal compartment with concave sides. The compartment is ornamented with bands of drop calyx, and lion masks surmounted by calyx set within roundels. The roundels are enclosed within bands of beading. Beyond the compartment there are pedestals supporting urns ornamented with gadrooning and flanked by festoons. All this is set within a plain band surrounded by rosettes set within roundels, and a further band of fluting. The apsidal end is bordered by a band of guilloche and ornamented with a semi-circular band of foil supporting calyx, and a semi-circular band of Vitruvian scroll

Scale

bar scale of ½ inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

1.st Library room Cieling at Roxburghe House / The Ornament in the Pannells Markd A was left out in the fair drawing given to the Duke / 30 / Medallion D Green / Light Green / Dark green / Light green / White / Light green / A / A / White / Light green / ke (cropped) / White / Light green

Signed and dated

December 1777
Adelphi / 20.t Dec.r 1777.

Medium and dimensions

Pen and pencil on laid paper (375 x 316)

Hand

Possibly
Office hand, possibly Joseph Bonomi

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 39
King, 2001, Volume I, p. 293
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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