[4] Design for a plan and laid-out wall elevations of the library or hall for the Writer of the Signet, 1791, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
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  - College of Justice, Edinburgh: designs for additions to the College of Justice, 1790-91, unexecuted (10)
    - Designs for additions to the College of Justice, 1790-91, unexecuted (4)
      - Design for the Library for the Writers of the Signet, 1791, unexecuted (1)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/08

Purpose

[4] Design for a plan and laid-out wall elevations of the library or hall for the Writer of the Signet, 1791, unexecuted

Aspect

Plan and laid-out wall elevations of a rectangular room with an upper gallery and an opening onto a staircase in one corner, as shown in SM Adam volume 33/6. Both levels are lined with bookcases flanked by columns. There are three arched windows in one wall, a chimneypiece in the other and a tripartite window within a recessed arch in the other. The different colour washes denote the building material

Scale

bar scale of 1 1/2 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

(In the hand William Adam) Edinburgh / (in another hand) Plan of the Library or Hall / for the Writers to the Signet / Gallery / Gallery / (in pencil) Open / (verso) Plans of the Writer’s Library as last fixed / N^o 3 these Plans go 2^d into the Book / Writer’s Library Record Room & Correct Plans

Signed and dated

3/11/1791
Edin^r 3^d Nov^r / 1791

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured wash including lemon yellow and pink on laid paper (637x483)

Hand

Possibly
Adam office hand, possibly Robert Morison or John Robertson

Watermark

Footed P

Literature

Bolton, 1922, p. 11
Kerr, 1998, pp. 4-7
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).