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Capriccio showing the interior of two large vaulted and coffered halls with the walls decorated with niches containing statues and relief panels of figures. A three-bay screen opens into an exedra; the foreground is on two levels, with steps and two large urns.
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Reference number
Adam vol.56/145
Purpose
Capriccio showing the interior of two large vaulted and coffered halls with the walls decorated with niches containing statues and relief panels of figures. A three-bay screen opens into an exedra; the foreground is on two levels, with steps and two large urns.
Aspect
Perspective
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink 101; in red ink 145 (in 2 places, twice on drawing and once on album leaf
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1756 or 1757.
Medium and dimensions
Pencil, pen, brown and grey washes; ink framing line 281 x 399
Hand
Robert Adam
Watermark
crowned fleur de lys
Notes
This is a variation on Adam vol.56/142, and like that drawing it is probably based on a Charles-Louis Clérisseau drawing, as is the case with Adam vol.56/138. This connection is emphasised further by McCormick, who reproduces the drawing as a 'Reconstruction Based on the Roman Baths', and compares it with a Clérisseau drawing, 'Intérieur d'une chambre sepulchrale de ma composition' in The Hermitage, St Petersburg, Russia (2403; McCormick 1990, op.cit., fig.46, p.239). The latter seems likely to have been a drawing 'puisqu'il [Clérisseau] le donne à copier à l'un de ces élèves' (see Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721-1820) Dessins du musée de l'Ermitage Saint-Petersbourg, catalogue of an exhibition at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1995, p.152). There is a smaller version of this drawing with a figure in The Hermitage (2558), which is most likely in Robert Adam's hand. An alternative source for Adam may be several of the pen sketches of c.1756 found in Adam volume 55. Bowron & Rishel view this composition as 'inspired by the remains of the great public bathing complexes of imperial Rome, which were the subject of an intensive survey he [Robert Adam] made during his last year there' (Bowron & Rishel 2000 op.cit., p.468).The two urns drawn in heavy black ink have been added to the composition by Adam.
Literature
Rep. Stillman 'Robert Adam's Grand Tour', Antiques Vol.83, June 1963, p.673; McCormick Charles-Louis Clérisseau and the Genesis of Neo-Classicism (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 1990), fig.47, p.51; Bowron & Rishel (eds.) Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia & London, 2000), catalogue of an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2000-1, p.469
Level
Drawing
Exhibition history
Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 16 March - 28 May 2000; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 25 June - 17 September 2000
Piranesi as Designer, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, 14 September 2007 - 27 January 2008; Teylers Museum, Haarlem, 9 February - 12 May 2008
Piranesi as Designer, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, 14 September 2007 - 27 January 2008; Teylers Museum, Haarlem, 9 February - 12 May 2008
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