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Capriccio showing a large circular, columned building above steps, with a Pantheon-style dome on a drum set in a wooded hilly landscape. In the foreground is a small waterfall.
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Reference number
Adam vol.56/53
Purpose
Capriccio showing a large circular, columned building above steps, with a Pantheon-style dome on a drum set in a wooded hilly landscape. In the foreground is a small waterfall.
Aspect
Perspective
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink 86; in red ink on backing sheet 53
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably c.1756.
Medium and dimensions
Pencil and pen; grey wash on grey washed paper265 x 423, mounted on backing sheet 318 x 429
Hand
Robert Adam
Verso
On the verso of the backing sheet are the remains of corners of a drawing on grey paper (see also Adam vol.56/50).
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 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).The circular building in this drawing can be compared to that in the small landscape sketch on the verso of Adam vol.55/51.
Level
Drawing
Exhibition history
The Adam Brothers in Rome: Drawings from the Grand Tour, Sir John Soane's Museum, London, 25 September 2008 - 14 February 2009
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