Katrina O’Loughlin, Ana Šverko, and Elke Katharina Wittich (eds), Dalmatia: Dalmatia in Travelogues, Images, and Photographs (The Institute of Art History, Zagreb), 2019
Robert Adam’s folio volume Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia ... more Robert Adam’s folio volume Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (1764) was one of the most significant architectural publications of the eighteenth century. It vividly revealed the emotional impact of the Palace remains, linking them forever with the name of Adam. But the book took several years to complete, largely because the illustrations were undertaken by two separate teams of artists, in Venice and London, whose progress in the early 1760s was monitored through regular correspondence be- tween Robert Adam in Britain and his brother and architectural part- ner James, who was at the time on his Grand Tour in Italy. This paper considers some of the difficulties inherent in compiling such a book in this way, by correspondence, especially at a time of war. It also reassesses James Adam’s role in managing the book’s production and looks afresh at the contributions of some of the artists involved, most notably Charles-Louis Clérisseau, Francesco Bartolozzi and Edward Rooker – all through the medium of the letters circulating between James in Italy and Robert and his sisters in London.
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Papers by Colin Thom
This paper considers the debt that Robert Adam owed in his Adelphi designs to his knowledge and experience of the great city palace of the Emperor Diocletian on the Adriatic at Spalato (always referred to by Adam himself as ‘Spalatro’). The similarities between the two complexes are fundamental: a Roman palace of many streets and buildings, for storage, servants and soldiers as well as the royal family, built on a vaulted basement, with a long waterfront façade of curved arches; and the Adelphi, fronting the Thames, its streets of genteel terraced houses for different social classes raised up on arched warehouses. The Adelphi is the classic example of Robert Adam’s ability to take the essential qualities of antique Roman remains and transform them to suit the requirements of eighteenth-century metropolitan society.
Robert Adam’s earliest London town houses, has
remained a shadowy figure for Adam scholars, with
seemingly little documentary material about his life to
draw upon, but this is no longer the case. He was well
known in political, literary and military circles and
there are now plentiful clues to be found as to his
career, his character and his often unusual opinions
on all manner of subjects – including architecture.
Much of this is brought together here for the first time.
As to Clerk’s house, designed expressly for him and his
wife-to-be Elizabeth, Countess of Warwick, it has long
been recognized that it was not built exactly to Adam’s
known plans. Previous studies have provided
important new information and fresh insights but
none has been able to recreate with certainty the
original layout of Clerk House nor explain fully the
prolonged, complicated story of its construction and
occupation. This essay, which stems from research for
the forthcoming Survey of London volumes on St
Marylebone, aims to address these and other aspects of
the building’s history and illustrates for the first time
a newly discovered first-floor plan of 1775, apparently
in the hand of Lady Warwick herself.
Other by Colin Thom
Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split
with the Zlatna vrata Centre for Culture and Lifelong
Learning, and the Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences of the University of Split
(Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split, Kružićeva 7)
(Zlatna Vrata Cinematheque, Dioklecijanova 7)
(Centre Studia Mediterranea: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
of the University of Split; Poljana kraljice Jelene 1/III)
21st-24th November 2018
This paper considers the debt that Robert Adam owed in his Adelphi designs to his knowledge and experience of the great city palace of the Emperor Diocletian on the Adriatic at Spalato (always referred to by Adam himself as ‘Spalatro’). The similarities between the two complexes are fundamental: a Roman palace of many streets and buildings, for storage, servants and soldiers as well as the royal family, built on a vaulted basement, with a long waterfront façade of curved arches; and the Adelphi, fronting the Thames, its streets of genteel terraced houses for different social classes raised up on arched warehouses. The Adelphi is the classic example of Robert Adam’s ability to take the essential qualities of antique Roman remains and transform them to suit the requirements of eighteenth-century metropolitan society.
Robert Adam’s earliest London town houses, has
remained a shadowy figure for Adam scholars, with
seemingly little documentary material about his life to
draw upon, but this is no longer the case. He was well
known in political, literary and military circles and
there are now plentiful clues to be found as to his
career, his character and his often unusual opinions
on all manner of subjects – including architecture.
Much of this is brought together here for the first time.
As to Clerk’s house, designed expressly for him and his
wife-to-be Elizabeth, Countess of Warwick, it has long
been recognized that it was not built exactly to Adam’s
known plans. Previous studies have provided
important new information and fresh insights but
none has been able to recreate with certainty the
original layout of Clerk House nor explain fully the
prolonged, complicated story of its construction and
occupation. This essay, which stems from research for
the forthcoming Survey of London volumes on St
Marylebone, aims to address these and other aspects of
the building’s history and illustrates for the first time
a newly discovered first-floor plan of 1775, apparently
in the hand of Lady Warwick herself.
Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split
with the Zlatna vrata Centre for Culture and Lifelong
Learning, and the Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences of the University of Split
(Institute of Art History – Cvito Fisković Centre Split, Kružićeva 7)
(Zlatna Vrata Cinematheque, Dioklecijanova 7)
(Centre Studia Mediterranea: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
of the University of Split; Poljana kraljice Jelene 1/III)
21st-24th November 2018