Veduta del Sepolcro di Mamia negl'avanzi dell'antica Città di Pompei

Reference: S39640
Author Francesco PIRANESI
Year: 1789
Measures: 715 x 521 mm
€1,500.00

Reference: S39640
Author Francesco PIRANESI
Year: 1789
Measures: 715 x 521 mm
€1,500.00

Description

Etching and engraving, 1789, from a subject by Louis-Jean Desprez.

Bottom left below the image: Luigi Desprez delin; bottom right below the image: Cav Franc.o Piranesi engraved 1789; bottom center: Veduta del Sepolcro di Mamia negl'avanzi dell'antica Città di Pompei.

Magnificent proof, rich in tones, printed on laid paper, with wide margins, in excellent condition.

A fine, exceptionally rare view of the excavations at Pompeii, executed by the son of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The view shows fashionably dressed, probably English, Grand Tourists viewing the splendid, recently excavated remains. Between 1764 and 1766, with the encouragement of the Bourbon rulers of Naples, digging began on the Theatre area, the Triangular Forum and the Temple of Isis, which would be fully brought to light in the first years of the next century. The city was soon popular with Grand Tourists and additional sites were opened in the north-west part of the city, where between 1760 and 1772 the insula occidentalis, the House of the Surgeon and the Villa of Diomede, along via dei Sepolcri, were partially explored. The cellar of the latter revealed 18 victims of the eruption, along with a treasure-trove of gold and silver coins. Louis Jean Desprez (1740-1804), trained as a stage designer and architect, was a talented watercolorist. Commissioned to do a series of views of the picturesque ruins surrounding the Bay of Naples, he completed this view of the temple if Isis in outline only, before travelling to Sweden under the patronage of Gustavus III. The copper plate was then worked up, completed and published by Francesco.

Francesco Piranesi (Rome, c. 1758 - Paris, January 1810), son and pupil of Giovan Battista, worked a great deal alongside his father, with whom he visited Pompeii in 1770. In 1799 he moved with his brother to Paris in flight from the political events related to the fall of the first Roman Republic; here the Calcografia Piranesi prints many plates made by Giovan Battista Piranesi and remained unpublished at the time of his death, including: Antiquitès de la Grande Grèce... (1804 -1807); Raccolta de' tempi antichi (1780); Il Teatro di Ercolano... (1783); Monumenti degli Scipioni (1785) and an anthology of the principal classical statues of Rome.

A great example.

Bibliografia

C.A. Petrucci, Catalogo Generale Delle Stampe Tratte Dai Rami Incisi Posseduti Dalla Calcografia Nazionale, 1021, p. 300 tav. 10, 1953; Focillon H., Giovanni Battista Piranesi, tav. 255, 1967; E. Benezit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessignateurs et Graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les Pays... nouvelle edition entiérement refondue sous la direction de Jacques Busse, Gründ 1999; L. Garcia y Garcia, Nova Bibliotheca Pompeiana, Roma 1998.

Francesco PIRANESI (Roma 1758 - Parigi 1810)

Son of Giovanni Battista, and heir to his plates. Etcher and publisher in Rome; held office in the Roman Republic of 1798, and had to flee with all his plates to Paris in 1799, where he established (with his brothers Peter and Laura, also engravers), the Chalcographie Piranesi des Frères and a factory of terracotta of ancient models. Francesco (1758–1810), who played an important part in completing his father's later works, notably the Vasi…Francesco Piranesi published a map of the Villa Adriana, Tivoli (1781), and added new plates to further editions of the Vedute, Antichità, and other works. Most importantly, he issued a massive collection of graphic works in 27 volumes (1800–7) as well as a three-volume set of Antiquités de la Grande Grèce (1804–7) based on his father's work at Pompeii.

Francesco PIRANESI (Roma 1758 - Parigi 1810)

Son of Giovanni Battista, and heir to his plates. Etcher and publisher in Rome; held office in the Roman Republic of 1798, and had to flee with all his plates to Paris in 1799, where he established (with his brothers Peter and Laura, also engravers), the Chalcographie Piranesi des Frères and a factory of terracotta of ancient models. Francesco (1758–1810), who played an important part in completing his father's later works, notably the Vasi…Francesco Piranesi published a map of the Villa Adriana, Tivoli (1781), and added new plates to further editions of the Vedute, Antichità, and other works. Most importantly, he issued a massive collection of graphic works in 27 volumes (1800–7) as well as a three-volume set of Antiquités de la Grande Grèce (1804–7) based on his father's work at Pompeii.