Inscribed
Inscribed on drawing in ink 90; in red ink on backing sheet 50
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably c.1756.
Medium and dimensions
Pencil and pen; grey wash on grey washed paper267 x 423, mounted on backing sheet 322 x 471
Hand
Robert Adam
Verso
Verso of backing sheet has remains of four corners of a drawing dated 1755; these fragments are likely to be from Adam vol.56/167 as the paper colour and chalk framing line fit closely; similar fragments are found on the verso of 56/53.
Notes
The drawings in Adam vol.56/49-54 are part of a set of landscape compositions by Robert Adam. They are all of a similar size, on grey washed paper and in the style of Jean-Baptiste Lallemand (1716-1803), but sources of the compositions may differ. It is likely that these drawings were part of a larger group since each has a number between 83 and 94, inscribed in the eighteenth century. They were probably made in Rome in c.1756; Robert Adam wrote in November of that year that he had been working on such 'kind of ... sketches...' and had '... already made out a dozen different views as unlike one another as I could ...' (Fleming Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh & Rome (London, 1962), p.363). This set of drawings, of which this drawing is a typical example, may be compared with the landscape compositions in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (for example 1954-14) (see Tait Robert Adam: drawings and imagination (Cambridge, 1993), pp.20-23).
Level
Drawing
Exhibition history
Robert Adam, The Creative Mind: from the Sketch to the Finished Drawing, Sir John Soane's Museum, 4 October 1996 - 1 March 1997; The Frick Collection, New York, December 1997 - April 1998; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, May - June 1998; The Octagon Museum, Washington, July 1998 - January 1999; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, February - March 1999
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural,
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