GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Mogliano Veneto, 1720 - Rome, 1778).
"Veduta degli avanzi delle Fabbriche delle Secondo Piano delle Terme di Tito. A- Primo Piano. B- Avanzi del Teatro".
Etching engraving illuminated by hand.
Size: 49 x 72 cm (print); 50 x 73 cm (paper); 77 x 98 cm (frame).
Piranesi first arrived in Rome in 1740, and there he found an established market for selling views of the city as souvenirs of the Grand Tour. His Views, however, transcended topographical fidelity and became heroic and tragic visions of the power of Roman architecture. Piranesi's Venetian origins were decisive in this particular representation of the city; his training as an engineer and builder in stone (in the poetic effect of the ruin, for example), and his apprenticeship as a set designer (sensitivity to the effects of light and great skill in linear and atmospheric perspectives). The plates were printed and sold in single sheets or in collections, initially through his publishers, Bouchar and Gravier. Piranesi went to the former's establishment every evening to see which views sold best and to listen to the comments of the customers. In 1760, however, the artist opened his own establishment, in the Palazzo Tomati, and from then on took control of the entire business, from printing to sales. Over the next two decades he produced a large body of work, and after his death in 1778 the business only increased. His son Francesco Piranesi expanded his father's series of 135 plates by two, and continued to sell in Rome until 1799, when he settled in Paris. Francesco sold the first Paris edition between 1800 and 1807, and after his death in 1810 the plates were acquired by the house of Firmin-Didot, which continued to publish them between 1835 and 1839. After the latter date they were acquired by what is now the Royal Chalcography in Rome.
Piranesi was an Italian engraver who produced more than 2,000 engravings of real and imaginary buildings, as well as Roman statues and reliefs. He studied architecture in Venice with his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi, where he learned about the works of Palladio, Vitruvius and the buildings of antiquity. In 1740 he moved to Rome, accompanied by the Pope's envoy in Venice, Marco Foscarini. In the Italian capital he was impressed by the Roman ruins and focused on depicting them, combining descriptive zeal and fantasy in a style that advanced Romanticism by a hundred years. In Rome he learned the technique of etching, and in 1743 he published his first large series of prints, "Prima Parte di Architettura e Propettiva". At the age of just twenty-three Piranesi already revealed his mastery as an engraver and his inventiveness. He opened his workshop opposite the French Academy in Rome, so he was always in close contact with French artists and scholars. His engravings enjoyed great commercial success, as they were sold to travellers as souvenirs of the Eternal City. In 1761 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Prints by Piranesi are preserved in the world's leading museums, including the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the British Museum, and the Fine Arts Museums in Dallas, San Francisco, Detroit, Washington, Sydney and Montreal.