Dr Frances Sands tells us about Robert Adam, the fashionable 18th-century architect whose exquisite plans and designs, inspired by Classical ruins he saw on his Grand Tour and made for London clients, are currently on show at Sir John Soane’s Museum.
Robert Adam is one of the best-known architects in British history. Born in Edinburgh in 1728, Adam was the second son of the architect William Adam, whose office he joined in 1745. The Adam family’s Edinburgh office was a burgeoning one, undertaking lucrative commissions such as the elegant Hopetoun House near Edinburgh, and the Hanoverian Highland Forts, which were built to suppress the Scots following the Jacobite uprising of 1745. Even at this early stage of his career, Adam started to show exceptional talent and, during his time working in the family firm, he earned a personal fortune of around £5,000, which enabled him to fund a lavish Grand Tour in 1754-58.
During this time, Adam travelled through France to Italy with the express purpose of continuing his architectural education and improving his drawing style under the tutelage of the French artist Charles-Louis Clérisseau. Alongside the educational opportunities that his Grand Tour offered, Adam also used the voyage as an opportunity to make his name. From Venice he travelled across the Adriatic with a team of draughtsmen to Spalatro in Dalmatia (now Split in Croatia) in order to compile material for an architectural treatise, The Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia, which was published in 1764.
This book would provide the British public with their first indepth taste of domestic antique architecture, albeit domestic architecture on an exceptionally grand scale, in the form of an imperial palace. Furthermore, the publication helped to legitimise Adam’s novel ideas for domestic planning and interior design, offering antique precedents for similar forms.
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Denne historien er fra January/February 2017-utgaven av Minerva.
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ROMAN DISCOVERIES AT ANCIENT AUGUSTODUNUM
More than 230 graves have been uncovered at a necropolis in the French city of Autun, revealing a diverse mix in burial practices over a period of nearly 200 years, as well as luxury grave goods from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD that highlight the wealth of some of its ancient inhabitants.
SHAPING THE WORLD: SCULPTURE FROM PREHISTORY TO NOW
The sculptor Antony Gormley and the art historian and critic Martin Gayford have been talking about sculpture with each other for 20 years.
Amelia Edwards (1831-1892)
“I am essentially a worker, and a hard worker, and this I have been since my early girlhood.”
THE GREAT BEYOND
The ancient Greeks thought much about the dead – how their remains should be disposed of, how their spirits might be summoned, how malignant they could be if unavenged. Classicist David Stuttard brings us face to face with the Greek dead.
INTO THE VALLEY OF THE QUEENS
The Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, Nefertari, was buried in one of the most spectacular tombs of Egypt’s Valley of the Queens. Well-educated and well-travelled, Nefertari played a crucial part in the political life of the pharaoh, and her importance was reflected through her magnificently decorated tomb. Lucia Marchini speaks to Jennifer Casler Price to find out more.
DEIR EL-BAHRI, 1894
Tensions were already high among the archaeologists, surveyors, and artists of the Archaeological Survey of Egypt in 1891 when an eventful dispute arose on Christmas Eve.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
When the Etruscans expanded to the south and the vast plains of Campania, they found a land of cultural connections and confrontations, as luxurious grave goods found across the region reveal. An exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples sheds light on these ancient Italians at the frontier. Paolo Giulierini, director of the museum, is our guide.
CUZCO 'CENTRE AND HEAD OF ALL THE LAND'
Cuzco was the heart of the vast Inca empire, but all changed in the 16th century when the capital was conquered by Spanish invaders. Michael J Schreffler investigates the Inca city, and how it went from the centre of one empire to the periphery of another.
A STUDY IN PURPLE
A tiny speck of purple paint from the 2nd century AD may yield clues to how ancient artists created the extraordinary portrait panels that accompanied mummified bodies into the afterlife.
Rome In The 8th Century: A History In Art
John Osborne CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, £75 HARDBACK - ISBN 978-1108834582
