Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Thirty-One Architectural Plates Depicting Various Monuments, Columns, and Antiquities. 1756-1800...
Description
Portfolio of Thirty-One Architectural Prints
by Piranesi
Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Thirty-One Architectural Plates
Depicting Various Monuments, Columns, and Antiquities.
1756-1800. Folio. Thirty-one various large prints, including
Piranesi's architectural diagrams of the Column of Marcus Aurelius,
the Theatre of Marcellus, several sections of Trajan's Column, the
triangular tiles of the Aurelian Wall, the reconstruction of the
remains of the arcades which were in front of the Septum Julium,
and many more. Most impressions clean, some with small ex-library
ink stamps (Brooklyn Public) on their corners, few pencil notes in
margins, some light foxing and surface wear, occasional edge wear
with small tears, chips, and minor paper loss in outside margins,
else in very good condition. Overall clean and suitable for
framing. Each plate measures approximately 16 x 22 inches, with the
exception of five smaller plates, measuring 11 x 16 inches. Prints
housed in protective binder sleeves in a well-worn large black
portfolio case with a handle. From the Krown & Spellman
Collection.Please visit HA.com/6117 for an extended description of this lot.
More Information:
"'I need to produce great ideas, and I believe that if I were commissioned to design a new universe, I would be mad enough to undertake it."
"This statement by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, reported by one of his early biographers, in many ways sums up the man whose dreams of antiquity so often surpassed reality, from his earliest etchings of architectural fantasies to the fanciful restorations of ancient remains that he produced at the end of his career.
"One of the greatest printmakers of the eighteenth century, Piranesi always considered himself an architect."- [Thompson].
Thompson, Wendy. "Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778)." In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pira/hd_pira.htm (October 2003)
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