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Capriccio showing an irregular building or church, with an octagonal centre block with cross above. There are two projecting porticos with pediments, linked by colonnades to a similar, asymmetric wing. There is a plan of the building, but omitting the asymmetric wing to the right. It shows the linking colonnades forming both an oval and an octagon.
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Reference number
Adam vol. 55/40
Purpose
Capriccio showing an irregular building or church, with an octagonal centre block with cross above. There are two projecting porticos with pediments, linked by colonnades to a similar, asymmetric wing. There is a plan of the building, but omitting the asymmetric wing to the right. It shows the linking colonnades forming both an oval and an octagon.
Aspect
Perspective, plan
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink on drawing 40; and in pencil in a contemporary hand La Vrai Eglise
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1755
Medium and dimensions
Black chalk276 x 156
Hand
Laurent Benoît Dewez (attributed to)
Verso
Print of the figure of Neptune with the following inscription below: Elegantissimum hoc Neptuni / Vetus simulacrum aereum / In Sicilia repentum, nunc extat apud / Carolum Hope Scoto-Britanicum/Anno 1755. / Pecheux R delt. Anto Zaballi.
Notes
The drawing is on the recto of the print described below. Robert Adam was in Naples, Italy with Charles Hope (1710-1791) in April 1755, when the latter probably acquired the sculpture. According to Fleming '...he appears to have bought several antique marbles while in Italy ..', and this may be one of them (see J. Fleming, Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh & Rome, London, 1962, p.356). The drawing was probably made after Adam and Hope had returned separately to Rome from Naples, and when Adam commissioned a series of studies after the antique from Laurent Pecheux (1729-1821) (see Fleming, op.cit. 1962, p.163). The verso of Adam vol.55/150 shows that Hope was borrowing money from Adam around this time. The date of the print, 1755, by Antonio Zaballi (1738-1785) confirms that the drawings in this volume belong to the period after April 1755. Adam's own drawings of his trip to Naples are in volume 57. It is possible that the perspective of the church is a topographical view rather than a capriccio, and the hand may possibly be that of Laurent Benoít Dewez (see volume 9).
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