Descrizione

PIRANESI GIOVANNI BATTISTA – Differentes vues de quelques restes de trois grands edifices qui subsistent encore dans le milieu de l’ancienne ville de Pesto autrement Posidonia qui est situee dans la Lucanie. [Rome, 1778].

Atlantic folio (560 x 401 mm.), 19th cent. black leather, with large corners, green cloth boards, gilt roll-border on covers, lettered in gold on spine “Rovine di Pesto”, top edge gilt in gold, title-page creased around central fold, some very light foxing, final plate with small repaired tear and small marginal tear, upper joint becoming weak at foot. Provenance: James O’Byrne (the architect, 1835-1897), armorial bookplate, his sale, Christie’s, London, 22 July 1987, lot 156. Double-page etched title-page, 20 double-page etched plates (of which 18 signed by Piranesi, two by his son Francesco).

Piranesi’s final work, is one of his most commanding statements on architecture and, ironically, was to have a profound effect on the appreciation of the monumental austerity of Greek architecture – against whose primacy Piranesi had fought in his ‘Magnificenza’ (see above n. 13) – as Neo-classicism developed. Although Piranesi had undoubtedly been familiar with the temples at Paestum much earlier, it was only in the late 1777, or possibly in the spring of 1778, that he made an expedition to record them, accompanied by his son Francesco, and two assistants. The result was a suite of 20 plates, which was authorized for the publication in September 1778, two months before his death. Although 18 plates are signed by Giambattista, it is likely that his son contributed to these and particularly to the remaining three – the frontispiece and plates XIX and XX – which are signed by Francesco. Like visible also in all the 17 surviving preparatory drawings, and in all the 21 plates, the architecture, the vegetation and the fragments are clearly by Giambattista’s hand, but the figures, on the other hand, are rather similar to those in Francesco’s later etched works. So probably the father, having made all the drawings, executed 18 of the plates and carried out much work of the remaining three before to die, and Francesco then proceeded to complete these latter, but he also succumbed to the temptation to retouch the remaining 18 plates, somewhat unsuccessfully attempting to reproduce the character of his father’s figure style. Wilton-Ely, the complete etchings, 777-800; Focillon 583-599; BAL RIBA 2555.