[5] Finished drawing for an elevation of the west front of the College of Justice, 1791, unexecuted

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Public buildings
  - College of Justice, Edinburgh: designs for additions to the College of Justice, 1790-91, unexecuted (10)
    - Variant designs for additions to the College of Justice, 1790-91, unexecuted (6)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/01

Purpose

[5] Finished drawing for an elevation of the west front of the College of Justice, 1791, unexecuted

Aspect

Elevation of a two-storey, twelve-bay building with a hipped roof and a domed octagonal tower to the rear. The central five bays of both floors project forwards. The ground floor is arcaded and rusticated and has a central stepped entrance with a fanlight above the door. The first floor is articulated by a mixture of Corinthian columns and pilasters with the central five bays supporting a pediment containing a central cartouche of the coat of arms of Edinburgh, with acroteria above. The projecting outer bays have openings in pedimented moulded surrounds with consoles, with medallions above and this design is repeated in the outer bays of the building, with heraldry flanked by sphinxes on plinths above. The entire elevation is adorned with a variety of decorative elements including vermiculated panels, inset circles, strigilated panels, and a mixture of geometric, festoon, and enclosed anthemion friezes

Scale

bar scale of 1 1/2 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

West Front of a new Design for part of the College of Justice & of a Library for the Dean & Faculty / of Advocates & also of a Library for the Writers to the Signet &c / (verso) 5 Pieces 1 Plan 1 Section 3 Plan Advocates Library Edin^h

Signed and dated

1791
Rob^tAdam Architect 1791

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and wash within a ruled border on laid paper (648x479)

Hand

Possibly
Adam office hand, possibly Robert Morison or John Robertson

Literature

Bolton, 1922, p. 11
Brown, 1989, p. 75
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.

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