Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
View of the Roman Forum, looking from the ruins at the Temple of Romulus and Remus towards the façade and campanile of Santa Francesca Romana and the Arch of Titus, with the Colosseum in the background.
Browse
Reference number
Adam vol.56/149
Purpose
View of the Roman Forum, looking from the ruins at the Temple of Romulus and Remus towards the façade and campanile of Santa Francesca Romana and the Arch of Titus, with the Colosseum in the background.
Aspect
Perspective
Inscribed
Inscribed in ink on right of drawing outside framing line 18; in red ink on album leaf and on drawing 149.
Signed and dated
- Undated, probably 1756.
Medium and dimensions
Pencil, pen, watercolour, bodycolour; ink framing line, beyond which is blue painted border238 x 377; on 3 out of the 4 sides (top, bottom, left-hand) the blue borders are composed of strips of paper
Hand
Jean-Baptiste Lallemand
Notes
This drawing is one of a set of six Roman views (Adam vol.56/149-154) by Jean-Baptiste Lallemand (1716-1803), all of which have contemporaneous painted borders and have central folds, and most of which are signed. There were several similar sets in the Adam sales of 1818 and 1821 (see Catalogue of A Valuable Collection of Antique Sculpture etc. R. Adam, Christie's, London, 21 & 22 May 1818 and Christie's London Catalogue of the Effects of Robert Adam Esq. Dec. 9 July 1821 & following days). Lot 32 of the second day sale of 1818 was described as 'Six elegant drawings in India ink by L'Alma, of Italian Garden scenery', and lot 29 contained several of Lallemand's landscapes, all of which were bought by John Soane (see Bolton The Architecture of Robert and James Adam, 2 vols. (London, 1922), II, p.331). The set was probably made in 1756 for Robert Adam, at the time when he described himself as '... applying myself to these kind of sketches and have already made out a dozen of different views as unlike one another as I could ...' (Fleming Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh & Rome (London, 1962), p.363). There is an almost identical view by Charles-Louis Clérisseau in The Hermitage, St Petersburg, Russia (11508).
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