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  • image Adam vol.7/8
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Reference number

Adam vol.7/8

Purpose

London: Parliament House (designs for). Unfinished design showing proposed and incomplete floor plan for the central hall with the royal arms in the centre and various other royal symbols in a series of radials. Above on the sheet are two details of a rectangular and a semi-circular pattern.

Aspect

Details verso details

Inscribed

Inscribed in ink in a contemporary hand Equally / divided / 3 ft / bla / 3 ft / white / 2 ft / 1 1/2 / 2 ft / here a border of black 2 ft. wide / a border of black / 3 steps white / black border Lettered in floor pattern VI.MAL.Y verso inscribed in pencil leaving for / Dreghorn

Signed and dated

  • Undated, probably 1763

Medium and dimensions

Pen, pencil, grey, blue, yellow, brown and pink washes 427 x 272

Hand

James Adam (attributed to)

Verso

Small details in pencil of rosettes and panels.

Notes

There is a less complete version of the circular plan here in Adam vol.7/11. This drawing is part of a group of drawings of various floor patterns for James Adam's Parliament House scheme, see Adam vol.7/5-7, 9-12, 72 and 74-76. The detail of this aspect of the scheme would suggest that these drawings were executed in the 1763 period. The hall shown here is identified in the plan in Adam vol.7/2 of 1760 as a 'Court of Tryals' . The notes are written in a small neat hand, probably that of James Adam, and the drawing may well be his too. However, the note on the verso 'Dreghorn' could refer to a Scottish draughtsman or to the eighteenth-century building near Edinburgh.
The lettering on the floor is part of the motto of the Order of the Garter: 'Honi soit qui mal y pense'.

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