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Italy: Rome, Forum of Trajan. Record drawing of a long rectangular panel showing an urn decorated with figures in relief in the centre, amid foliage and rosettes. On each side of the urn is a winged half-figure pouring a libation to a griffin.
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Reference number
Adam vol.26/53
Purpose
Italy: Rome, Forum of Trajan. Record drawing of a long rectangular panel showing an urn decorated with figures in relief in the centre, amid foliage and rosettes. On each side of the urn is a winged half-figure pouring a libation to a griffin.
Aspect
Elevation
Inscribed
Inscribed in pencil in a nineteenth-century hand Aldrobrandini
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1760 - 63
Medium and dimensions
Black chalk
247 x 575
Hand
Nicolas-François-David Lhuiller (attributed to)
Watermark
fleur de lys in double circle
Notes
An almost identical version of this panel was used by Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820) in his Roman house project of 1773 (see T. McCormick, Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the Genesis of Neo-Classicism, Cambridge Massachusetts and London, 1990, p.187, fig.152). The composition is derived from the relief in the Forum of Trajan (see Adam vol.26/50; P. Bober and R. Rubinstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture, Oxford, 1986, pl.55; and C. Vermeule, Catalogue of the Classical Antiquities, Sir John Soane's Museum, London, 1975, vol.1, p.288). The reference to 'Aldrobrandini' probably refers to the Villa Aldrobrandini, which had a distinguished collection of antiquities in the eighteenth century, including 'Le Nozze Aldrobrandini'. The marble relief on which this composition is based was illustrated as being in the gardens there in G. B. Piranesi, Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi, Sarcophagi, etc., Rome, 1778. It may also possibly be a reference to the antiquarian Ulisse Aldrovandi's Delle statue antiche che per tutta Roma, Antichita della Citta di Roma, Venice, 1556.
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