Piranesi Giovanni Battista - Vaso Antico di marmo di gran mole si vede nel cortile del monastero di S. Cecilia in Trastevere - Etching on paper (1778)
Estimate: £800 - £900
Artist proof, printed on contemporary laid paper, wide margins, representing an antique marble vase in S.Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, as the capture explains. Etching with good contrasts and sharp details, Signed on plate “Cavalier Piranesi del. ed inc.” on lower-left margin. Very good conditions, with normal fold, some light foxings and little holes in higher margin due to the binding of the serie “Vases and Candelabras (…) designed and etched by G.B. Piranesi, printed and collected by his son Francesco.
Undoubtedly Piranesi was one of the most important engravers in 18th century even if he was well-known as an architect and an archaeologist: the greatest engraver in the period from Rembrandt a Goya. The generations after him have continued to imagine the Ancient Rome as the artist has portrayed his magnificent in "Vedute".
Ref: L. FICACCI, Piranesi, The Complete Etchings, Taschen, p.606, fig. 767; A.A.V.V., Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Architetture, fantasie e grotteschi, Antichità Romane, Catalogo 24, Antiquarius, Roma, 2004, p. 72.
Undoubtedly Piranesi was one of the most important engravers in 18th century even if he was well-known as an architect and an archaeologist: the greatest engraver in the period from Rembrandt a Goya. The generations after him have continued to imagine the Ancient Rome as the artist has portrayed his magnificent in "Vedute".
Ref: L. FICACCI, Piranesi, The Complete Etchings, Taschen, p.606, fig. 767; A.A.V.V., Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Architetture, fantasie e grotteschi, Antichità Romane, Catalogo 24, Antiquarius, Roma, 2004, p. 72.