Alternative preliminary design, design, and finished drawing for the ceiling for the great room, 1765, drawing 10 executed with minor alterations (3)

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
- Town houses
  - London
    - Coventry House, 29 (now 106) Piccadilly, London: designs for unexecuted alterations to the house, and for executed interior decoration, for the 6th Earl of Coventry, 1764-70 (57)

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Alternative preliminary design, design, and finished drawing for the ceiling for the great room, 1765, drawing 10 executed with minor alterations (3)

Notes

The great room was the principal reception and drawing room of the house, and is the front room on the first floor of the house. Its use as a drawing room is confirmed by Adam having billed Lord Coventry for sofa designs for the room in February 1765, for which he charged £2.2s. Neither Adam's designs, nor the sofas survive.

As in the ante room and Lady Coventry's bedroom, Adam hung the walls of the great room with red damask. His ceiling, therefore, was his principal interior decorative contribution here. The ceiling was executed to a slightly altered version of Adam volume 11/39, and with painted panels by Antonio Zucchi. The ceiling and Zucchi's paintings all survive in situ.

According to his bill to Lord Coventry, Adam charged £20.0s. for the ceiling design (Adam volume 11/40) in June 1765. It is a painted ceiling in the antique style. One month later working drawings were provided at a cost of £5.5s. Then, in November 1765 a drawing showing alterations to the ceiling design was produced for £1.1s. This drawing does not survive, but presumably showed the minor alterations to Adam volume 11/39 that can be seen in the surviving ceiling.

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Contents of Alternative preliminary design, design, and finished drawing for the ceiling for the great room, 1765, drawing 10 executed with minor alterations (3)