Lot 101
Piranesi, Giovanni Battista
Alcune vedute di archi trionfali, ed altri monumenti inalzati da Romani
Auction: 16 June 2026 from 10:00 BST
Description
parte de quali si veggono in Roma, e parte per l'Italia. [Rome: Regia Calcografia], c.1870. Broadsheets (65 x 46cm), contemporary wrappers, 16 leaves of thick wove paper, etched throughout, comprising title with decorative surround and dedication to on one leaf, 2 panels of text on one leaf, and 28 etched plates of various sizes on 14 leaves, plates numbered 365-366, 367a-b, 368, 369a-d, 370a-d, 371a-d, 372a-d, 373a-d, 374a-d, 375a-b and 376, 3 leaves with blind stamp of 'Regia Calcografia di Roma' in bottom right corner, wrappers worn, torn, backstrip lacking, first 4 leaves and final leaf with tears, dust-soiling and creasing
Footnote
'These exquisite plates, based on sketches made during Piranesi's travels in Italy, c.1743-7, and subdivided into “Part I: Ruins outside Rome” and “Part II: Ruins within Rome," may be considered among the artist's graphic masterpieces. They possess a unity of and range of experiment lacking in the Varie Vedute and even in the early plates of the larger Vedute di Roma' (Wilton-Ely. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, p. 144).
In 1807, the original copper plates were sold to Paris publishers Firmin-Didot Frères. Agents for the Vatican then purchased them plates for the Camera Apostolica in 1839. From about 1840 the Calcografia Camerale started to print reissues of ‘the entire series of Piranesi’s etchings, the particular pride [of the press]' (Treccani, online). This firm was renamed the Regia Calcografia in 1870 and operated under that name until 1945 when it became the Calcografia Nationale.