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Italy: unidentified location. View of a square tower with machicolations, surrounded by irregular domestic buildings in a rocky landscape, with a tree.
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Reference number
Adam vol.57/71
Purpose
Italy: unidentified location. View of a square tower with machicolations, surrounded by irregular domestic buildings in a rocky landscape, with a tree.
Aspect
Perspective
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink 71
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1755 or 1756.
Medium and dimensions
Pencil, pen, grey and brown washes; pencil framing lines top and bottom, 131 x 185
Hand
Robert Adam
Verso
Pencil and watercolour sketch of a tower on top of a high slope, which may have been a preliminary sketch for the more finished wash view.
Notes
This view by Robert Adam is similar in composition to Adam vol.57/58, which has a round rather than a square tower, and both can be related to six compositions by Charles-Louis Clérisseau for maison de campagne (see Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820) Dessins du musée de l'Ermitage Saint-Petersbourg, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1995, p.148; Inv.2497-2502). A similar fortified village is also depicted in a watercolour attributed to Clérisseau in Adam vol.57/81. The composition and style of the drawing here show Adam working in the manner of Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, as in Adam vol.57/58.
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