Decorum and celebration of the family line: Robert Adam's monuments to the 1st Duchess of Northumberland

• Autores: Adriano Aymonino
• Localización: Burlington magazine, ISSN 0007-6287, Vol. 152, Nº 1286, 2010, págs. 288-296
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The writer discusses the monuments designed by Robert Adam for the 1st Duchess of Northumberland. Of Adams's vast production in the field of funerary memorials, one of the most important is the project for the monument to Elizabeth Seymour Percy, 1st Duchess of Northumberland, in St Nicholas chapel in Westminster Abbey, London, which was erected by her husband, Hugh Smithson Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The grandest of the Adam wall monuments and at the same time one of the most awkward but fascinating English church memorials of the 18th century, this is a very architectural, idiosyncratic, and experimental work that combines in its shape three different styles and periods to create something unique for that age in England. The writer examines the work and the circumstances of its commission, arguing that its curious fusion is more the result of the precise desires of the patron than Adams's stylistic concerns.