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  • image SM Adam volume 33/23

Reference number

SM Adam volume 33/23

Purpose

[10] Finished drawing for an axial section through a group of prison buildings for Edinburgh Bridewell, 1790-91, unexecuted

Aspect

Axial section, from north to south, showing a group of prison buildings. At the north end is a two-storey chapel with a domed ceiling, connected to an inner range by a single-storey wall. This is followed by a two-storey block of cells lined with an internal columned loggia which connects to the central two-storey block with a tall steeple and weathervane. Beyond this is another range of cells, in a curved formation, with wall and basement vaults in front, connecting to the entrance block at the south end which is two storeys with a portico and basement vaults

Scale

bar scale of 1/2 an inch to 10 feet

Inscribed

Section across the new Bridewell from C to D / (verso) 4 / 5

Signed and dated

  • 1790-91
    datable to 1790-91

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, wash and coloured wash including lemon yellow and pink on laid paper (469x277)

Hand

Possibly
Adam office hand, possibly Robert Morison, John Robertson, or John Paterson

Watermark

GR surmounted by a fleur de lis within a crowned cartouche

Literature

Bolton, 1922, p. 11
King, Vol. 2, 2001, p. 54
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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