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Notes
The wall elevation without a segmental window (Adam volume 50/54) contains ornamentation in the cove which corresponds with that in Adam's ceiling design (Adam volume 12/86). As Bonomi's inscription on the saloon ceiling design (Adam volume 12/86) suggests that work on this scheme was begun (if not completed), it is suggested here that the idea of a segmental lantern or roof light was abandoned, and that the final design corresponded with Adam volume 50/54.
A sofa is included in Adam volume 50/54. According to Harris, French influence is apparent in this design. The spiral fluted legs are the type often found on Boulle furniture. Moreover, Harris has suggested that although uninscribed, Adam volume 6/153 is probably a preliminary design for this sofa.
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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).
Contents of Alternative preliminary design, design and finished drawing for the saloon and sofa, 1771, unexecuted (3)
- [10] Alternative design for the saloon and sofa, 1771, unexecuted
- [11] Alternative preliminary design for the saloon and sofa, 1771, unexecuted
- [12] Alternative finished drawing for the saloon and sofa, 1771, unexecuted