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Capriccio showing a plan for a rectangular courtyard with steps, one curved to water with three boats. It is surrounded on two sides by a double colonnade with an exedra at the top with convex steps. Linked to it is another exedra with niche in the centre on top of steps.
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Reference number
Adam vol.55/42
Purpose
Capriccio showing a plan for a rectangular courtyard with steps, one curved to water with three boats. It is surrounded on two sides by a double colonnade with an exedra at the top with convex steps. Linked to it is another exedra with niche in the centre on top of steps.
Aspect
Plan
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink on drawing 42
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1755 - 56
Medium and dimensions
Pen182 x 241
Hand
Robert Adam
Watermark
letters
Notes
This drawing is the plan to the perspective in Adam vol.55/43, although they differ in that the latter shows more of the courtyard architecture, and the court itself is different and without boats. The plan shows three boats in a sunken rectangular court with steps. In both Rome and Florence there was a long tradition from antiquity of flooding courtyards for aquatic spectacles, and this drawing may depict a court so converted; it may have been inspired by a sixteenth-century print.
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk