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  • image Adam vol.55/113
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Reference number

Adam vol.55/113

Purpose

Capriccio showing the elevation of a decorated fountain composed of a sarcophagus basin with lion's mask jet above swags joined to two human faces in profile, and with a cartouche above. Two side jets with basins are supported by dolphins.

Aspect

Elevation

Inscribed

Inscribed in ink on drawing 113

Signed and dated

  • Undated, probably 1755

Medium and dimensions

Pen154 x 220

Hand

Robert Adam

Notes

The traditional composition of using a sarcophagus as a basin for a fountain is a familiar one in the capricci of Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820), and these are probably what Robert Adam drew on here. The playful classicism in this drawing suggests early Adam of around 1755. There are several more serious fountain designs by James Adam for his Parliament House, London and Royal Theatre of 1763 in volume 7.

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

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).