Charles-Louis Clérisseau studied in Paris and in 1749 went to Rome where five years later he met Robert Adam, becoming his principal draughtsman and joining him in London in 1771. His design for a library at Lansdowne House was made in 1774 after Lord Lansdowne had rejected Panini's design for a gallery. In turn Clérisseau's design was superseded in 1779 by a design for a gallery commissioned from Bélanger.

Clérisseau proposed remodelling Adam's original octagonal end rooms into domed squares, widening the openings between them and the centre, and substituting a giant Corinthian order for Adam's smaller Ionic columns. Stylistically, Stillman (1970, p.78) considered the French architect's design as Adam-like but reflecting the 1760s rather than the later more developed manner of decoration.

A design for 'une Porte de la Rue' for Lansdowne House is in the Bowood House Archive, information from Dr Kate Fielden, curator (letter, 1 August 2002).

LITERATURE. D. Stillman, 'The Gallery for Lansdowne House', Art Bulletin, LII, 1970, pp.75-80; T. J. McCormick, Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the genesis of Neo-Classicism, New York, 1990, pp.151-2 (fig.131 is Bélanger's Lansdowne House design [SM 68/5/4] and is not, as the caption indicates, by Clérisseau).

Group

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