Almost nothing is known about Charles-Louis Clérisseau's English period (1771-c.1773); hence the importance of this Soane copy of a lost drawing. As a long-time collaborator of the Adam brothers, Clérisseau understandably might have contributed an ornamental screen wall to a London town house designed by them. Soane's connection with the events is less easy to pinpoint. As a young employee of Henry Holland after 1772 he certainly knew Robert Adam, whom he greatly admired. Perhaps because of this Soane accumulated a considerable amount of information on Lansdowne House, both in the forms of drawings and account books. Presumably Soane himself witnessed the collapse of the alcove, one of the few Clérisseau works ever executed. The mishap did not prejudice Soane against Clérisseau's artistic abilities and he avidly collected Clérisseau's gouaches to the extent that his Museum has the largest holdings of them outside Russia.