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Design for the chimneypiece for the back drawing room, c1769-70; it is not known if this design was executed (1)

Notes

The inscription on this drawing points to an intended location on both the Royal Terrace and Adam Street, but as the River front is explicitly stated, this design has been catalogued here.

It is not known if this design was executed as there is no known photographic record of the chimneypiece prior to demolition.

This design is a close variant of that designed by Adam in 1766 for Lady Shelburne’s bedchamber at Shelburne House (Adam volume 22/113). The Shelburne House chimneypiece design was inscribed by Adam in pencil with the words, 10t House, Back Parlor, suggesting that Adam had considered reusing it at the Adelphi, although he had perhaps originally intended it elsewhere. This design also makes use of the same frieze as that designed by Adam in 1766 for the dining room at Ugbrooke (Adam volume 22/170). The Ugbrooke design is inscribed in pencil with the words, 3d House / River front / Back Parlor, suggesting that Adam had considered reusing it in the back parlour of number 2 Royal Terrace, although the extant design for the chimneypiece for the back parlour at number 2 Royal Terrace (Adam volume 24/28) does not correspond with the Ugbrooke design.

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Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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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.

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Contents of Design for the chimneypiece for the back drawing room, c1769-70; it is not known if this design was executed (1)