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  • image Adam vol.55/166
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Reference number

Adam vol.55/166

Purpose

Capriccio showing a symmetrical domed and pedimented pavilion with three-bay porticoes on steps surrounded by a series of interconnected porticoes with pediments; it is set in a woody landscape. Below on the sheet is part of a plan of a double three-bay portico and curved façade.

Aspect

Perspective, planverso elevation

Inscribed

Inscribed in ink on drawing 166

Signed and dated

  • Undated, probably 1755 - 56

Medium and dimensions

Pen, grey wash126 x 256

Hand

Robert Adam

Verso

Unfinished capriccio in pen over black chalk showing an elevation of a triumphal arch based on a composite of the arch of Titus crossed with that of Constantine, and has a single arch and figures on the attic inscription; it is linked by a three-bay quadrant to a pavilion of coffered apsidal form with steps and pediment. Lettered in ink on the arch: IMP. CS[?] AUGT. FETIT ID VESPA / CON III PRO VICTO. T RA. / MART C F. IN HONOR PGR.

Notes

The pavilion may be based on a symmetrical plan, such as that at Adam vol.55/128. The landscape setting is similar to that found in earlier drawings in volume 56 (see Adam vol.56/8). The surrounding porticoes on the left can be compared with that shown in detail in Adam vol.55/161.

Level

Drawing

Exhibition history

The Adam Brothers in Rome: Drawings from the Grand Tour, Sir John Soane's Museum, London, 25 September 2008 - 14 February 2009

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).