[1] Design for ornamentation of a picture frame, 1784, possibly executed

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Robert and James Adam office drawings
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  - Boydell Gallery, 90 Cheapside, London, designs for ornamentation for picture frames for Alderman John Boydell, 1784, possibly executed (3)
    - Design and alternative design for ornamentation of a picture frame, 1784, possibly executed (2)

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Reference number

SM Adam volume 20/253

Purpose

[1] Design for ornamentation of a picture frame, 1784, possibly executed

Aspect

Elevation of a picture frame surmounted by ornamentation, with a central portrait oval surmounted by crenellations forming a mural crown, and flanked by a recumbent lion and unicorn surrounded by military trophies. There are further portrait rondels to the left and right, surmounted by a stag with a thistle, and a lion with a rose respectively, and each of the portraits are linked with festoons

Scale

bar scale of ¾ inches to 1 foot

Inscribed

Design of an Ornament for the top of a picture frame for Mr Alderman Boydell / 253

Signed and dated

April 1784
Robt Adam 1784 / April 3.d 1784

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil and coloured washes including Naples yellow, cerulean blue, pink and olive green on laid paper (517 x 372)

Hand

Probably
Robert Adam

Verso

Preliminary design (red chalk) as Adam volume 20/253

Watermark

Literature

Bolton, 1922, Volume II, Index p. 52
Harris, 1990, p. 93, 97
Ballew Neff, 1996, p. 68
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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