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London: Parliament House (designs for). Design for a rectangular panel showing in relief a naval engagement with figures in contemporary dress in several small boats and mortars on rafts. In the background are ships and a walled city.
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Reference number
Adam vol.7/54
Purpose
London: Parliament House (designs for). Design for a rectangular panel showing in relief a naval engagement with figures in contemporary dress in several small boats and mortars on rafts. In the background are ships and a walled city.
Aspect
Elevation
Inscribed
Inscribed in pencil in a contemporary hand Octavo; and in a different hand Martanico Bombarded April 1762
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1762-63
Medium and dimensions
Pencil, pen, brown wash with white heightening, partly oxidised, on brown washed paper
165 x 460
Hand
Antonio Zucchi (attributed to)
Notes
This composition is the eighth in a series of reliefs of contemporary and historic battles (Adam vol.7/47-59), all intended to be part of a programme of iconographical decoration for James Adam's Parliament House scheme of 1762/63. The drawings are probably all by Antonio Zucchi (1726-95), with his characteristic use of brown paper. The pencil identification and dating of each historical scene is probably in an early nineteenth-century hand.
'Martanico' refers to the island of Martinique that was besieged and taken by the British in 1762. This confirms, as does Adam vol.7/55, that the drawings in this group were made in Rome during the winter of 1762/63.
'Martanico' refers to the island of Martinique that was besieged and taken by the British in 1762. This confirms, as does Adam vol.7/55, that the drawings in this group were made in Rome during the winter of 1762/63.
Literature
Rep. A. A. Tait, Robert Adam: drawings and imagination, Cambridge, 1993, p.67, fig.56
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