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The second scheme of 1774 (Adam volume 23/46) was included in the second volume of The works in architecture of Robert and James Adam (part 1, plate 3), and is illustrated with only minor alterations to the drawing. It shows the carayatids supporting the overmantel mirror frame in the drawing having been replaced with terms, ornamented with drops of calyx in the shafts. Adam's preface to this plate reads:
Two Chimney-pieces in the Front and Second Withdrawing-rooms, with Glass-Frames over them. These chimney-pieces are of statuary marble, and the frames for the glasses are carved in wood and gilt.
Here it is suggested that the chimneypiece and its overmantel - in both Adam's drawing and the Works - was executed. However, it is not known to have survived when the house was demolished in 1862.
Harris has noted that Adam's design for the second drawing room overmantel mirror frame is comparable to those he designs for Robert Child at Berkeley Square (Adam volume 20/38) in 1771, the Earl of Bute for Luton Park (Adam volume 20/116) in 1772, and the Duke of Bolton for Southampton Row (Adam volume 20/82) in 1773. Although it does not survive, the overmantel frame from 23 Grosvenor Square has since been widely imitated from the engraving in the Works.
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Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.
Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).
Contents of Alternative preliminary design and designs for the second drawing room chimneypiece, 1773-73, Adam volume 23/46 as executed (3)
- [15] Preliminary design for a chimneypiece for the second drawing room, 1773, unexecuted
- [16] Design for a chimneypiece for the second drawing room, 1773, unexecuted
- [17] Design for a chimneypiece and overmantel for the second drawing room, 1774, executed with alterations