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Preliminary design for a sundial, c1763-85 (1)

Notes

There is no evidence that any such sundial was executed at Audley End. Adam was responsible for a dairy and brewhouse complex in 1763, for which no drawings survive. This is now connected to Adams kitchens by a later building, and it is possible that the sundial was intended for this position.

In 2024 it was noted by Richard Garnier that this sundial design appears to have been copied from, or at least inspired by an antique pedestal which supports Nolleken’s bust of William Weddell in Adam's sculpture gallery at Newby Hall. Adam's work at Audley End and Newby Hall were contemporary. It must be noted, however, that the antique pedestal at Newby is triangular in plan, whereas this sundial design is square, and the sundial has additional ornamental features which the antique pedestal does not.

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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.

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Contents of Preliminary design for a sundial, c1763-85 (1)