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Reconstruction drawing of the portico of the Pantheon in Rome
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Reference number
SM drawer 69/1/12
Purpose
Reconstruction drawing of the portico of the Pantheon in Rome
Aspect
Perspective in elevational view
Scale
none given
Inscribed
In pen and dark brown ink, at bottom left (beneath pasted cut-out of drawing in centre of main sheet), C. Wren.
Signed and dated
- Later 17th century
Medium and dimensions
Pen and black ink with grey, brown and yellow washes; on cut-out sheet of cream-coloured laid paper, pasted on to larger backing sheet of lighter paper, where is it framed by a border in an incised line, marked lightly with graphite; 200 x 300 (cut-out), on 247 x 355 (main sheet)
Hand
Unidentified
Watermark
On cut-out, a tall, narrow pot surmounted by a five-point star on a spike; on main sheet, Strasbourg Lily / WR
Notes
The drawing is an inaccurate reconstruction of the portico of the Pantheon in Rome. The pediment is too low, the columns are too slender, and the niches in the outer bays have been given rusticated arches and impost mouldings. The treatment of these niches (set back from the wall face, and with the impost mouldings running around them) suggests a date in the later seventeenth century. The general naivity of the drawing points to an English draughtsman, unfamiliar with the published sources for the Pantheon and unskilled in perspective drawing.
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