The Antiquities of Rome (Le Antichità Romane)
Artist
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
(Italian, 1720-1778)
CultureItalian
Date1784
MediumPaper
Dimensions20 5/8 x 15 3/4 in. (52.4 x 40 cm)
Credit LineGift of the Mowbray Arch Society, 2010
Object number2010.9
Not on view
DescriptionFour volumes, folio (20 ? x 15 ¾ inches) published in Rome by Stamperia Salomoni, second edition, 1784. Letterpress title to vol.I. One etched portrait frontispiece of Piranesi by Francisco Piranesi; three etched titles; two engraved index leaves; one double-page etched dedication to Gustavius III of Sweden; 247 etched plates on 214 leaves (two double-page by Francisco Piranesi, 245 by G.B. Piranesi [10 folding, 118 doublepage; 6 single-page plates printed on three double-page leaves; 53 single-page plates, 60 half-page plates printed on thirty single-page leaves]), 1 etched headpiece, 1 etched illustration, 6 etched initials. Contemporary diced russia, covers with triple fillet borders, expertly rebacked to style using eighteenth-century russia, spines in seven compartments with double raised bands, the bands highlighted by gilt fillets and roll tools, lettered in gilt in the second and third compartments, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, the four volumes in two modern half-morocco boxes with title labels on upper covers. Label TextGiovanni Battista Piranesi Italian (1720-1778) Le Antichità Romane [The Antiquities of Rome], 1784 Four volume set of etchings Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society, 2010 2010.9.1-.4 Published in Rome in 1784, Giovanni Battista Piranesi's The Antiquities of Rome was one of the most influential works of art produced in the realm of printmaking during the eighteenth century. It contains 247 original etchings by the great Italian printmaker, nearly half of them grand double-page images as those displayed here. Piranesi's brilliantly composed etchings captured not only the dramatic sweep and grandeur of Rome's ancient architectural remains-its antique temples, tombs, amphitheaters, and bridges-but revealed with unprecedented accuracy the complex structural underpinnings of those same great monuments. It is both an artistic and archeological masterpiece. The Antiquities of Rome exerted a formative influence on European Neoclassicism, a style devoted to the modern rediscovery of the art and architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. It also presented a powerfully moralizing message about the fleeting nature of all things made by man. ProvenanceSir Henry Goodricke (6th Baronet, of Ribstone, Yorkshire, 1765-1802, engraved armorial bookplates); private collection; Donald A. Heald, New York, NY, 2010; Gift of the Mowbray Arch Society to the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA, 2010.Published ReferencesLuigi Ficacci, _Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Complete Etchings_, 2000, 166-319. John Wilton-Ely, _Giovanni Battista Piranesi: The Complete Etchings_, 1994, I, 327-582.
ca. 1550
ca.1550
