Varie Vedute di Roma. Antica, e Moderne, Disegnate e Intagliate da Celebri Autori
Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, et al
Rome. A Spese Fausta Amedei dei Libraro al'Corso. 1748
Sold
Rare collection of Roman 'vedutini' including some of Piranesi's earliest works.
Published in various issues, with a varying number of plates and by various publishers, the dating of this series is difficult. The presence of all of Piranesi's early vetudini (as opposed to his later and large vedute) as well as the presence of the seven plates by Bellicard, each dated 1750, make it clear that this issue is from 1750. Earlier issues included fewer plates by Piranesi, while in later versions (cf. Millard) no additional plates by Piranesi are included but those of other artists are.
The dating of the series aside, the plates themselves present a fascinating window on the nascent career of Piranesi and his developing style, methodology and artistic concern. When contrasted with the other engravers and artists included (Le Geay, Bellicard, Duflos and the intriguingly named P. Anesi), Piranesi's work appears enormously more interesting and far more successful. Piranesi's plates are filled with the detail, engraved with the technique and come to life on the page in much the same way that one associates with his more mature works. As a starting point for an appreciation of Piranesi's oeuvre, this collection is indispensable.
'These small views of Rome raise more problems with regard to dating than virtually any of Piranesi's other works. Executed at the outset of his career, they are among the very few plates which the artist appears to have sold outright to a publisher and which were not reissued in later editions of his collected works ... They are of particular importance in plotting the development of Piranesi's graphic skills, as they range from his first tentative efforts to some highly sophisticated compositions.' (Wilton-Ely).
'Although one-third of the forty-eight plates etched by Piranesi for the Varie Vedute are illustrations of ancient Roman buildings, the collection is dominated by views of contemporary Roman architecture ... Stylistically the small views ... are closer to those of contemporary Roman illustrators active in the 1730s and 1740s, such as Vasi, than to Piranesi's own work made just a few years later. Nonetheless, in these views Piranesi adopts a broad range of compositional devices, some of which he later developed further, such as his view of San Giovanni in Laterano, where he moves the facade close to the foreground and angles it away from the plane. Scott (1975) finds that Piranesi's style altered as soon as he switched to ancient ruins and that his plates 'came to life' through the use of a livelier graphic technique marked by furry lines with horizontal dashes, while the somewhat perfunctory treatment of the earliest views may have reflected Piranesi's limited interest in Renaissance buildings.' (Millard).
'In terms of their verisimilitude, a concern common to all artists, Piranesi's views stood out for the extraordinary visual relief of the monument they represented, achieved thanks to continually evolving perspective and spatial choices. His figurative language was exceptionally new, combining the atmospheric delicacy of the views by Canaletto and the spatial dynamics of Bibiena's set design tradition, as if the diagonal axes of a Bibiena stage set were the most appropriate fot organizing the fragmentary, chance irregularity that typified the contemporary character of Rome in Piranesi's mind - the Rome that had suffocated the immense, organic urban order of the ancient city under a formless mass.' (Ficacci).
A full list of plates is available on request.
[see Wilton-Ely pg. 90, Hind pp. 76 - 78, Focillon pp. 15 - 17; Wilton-Ely CI, 51 - 101; Focillon 72 - 119; Millard 84 (later issue?)].
Published in various issues, with a varying number of plates and by various publishers, the dating of this series is difficult. The presence of all of Piranesi's early vetudini (as opposed to his later and large vedute) as well as the presence of the seven plates by Bellicard, each dated 1750, make it clear that this issue is from 1750. Earlier issues included fewer plates by Piranesi, while in later versions (cf. Millard) no additional plates by Piranesi are included but those of other artists are.
The dating of the series aside, the plates themselves present a fascinating window on the nascent career of Piranesi and his developing style, methodology and artistic concern. When contrasted with the other engravers and artists included (Le Geay, Bellicard, Duflos and the intriguingly named P. Anesi), Piranesi's work appears enormously more interesting and far more successful. Piranesi's plates are filled with the detail, engraved with the technique and come to life on the page in much the same way that one associates with his more mature works. As a starting point for an appreciation of Piranesi's oeuvre, this collection is indispensable.
'These small views of Rome raise more problems with regard to dating than virtually any of Piranesi's other works. Executed at the outset of his career, they are among the very few plates which the artist appears to have sold outright to a publisher and which were not reissued in later editions of his collected works ... They are of particular importance in plotting the development of Piranesi's graphic skills, as they range from his first tentative efforts to some highly sophisticated compositions.' (Wilton-Ely).
'Although one-third of the forty-eight plates etched by Piranesi for the Varie Vedute are illustrations of ancient Roman buildings, the collection is dominated by views of contemporary Roman architecture ... Stylistically the small views ... are closer to those of contemporary Roman illustrators active in the 1730s and 1740s, such as Vasi, than to Piranesi's own work made just a few years later. Nonetheless, in these views Piranesi adopts a broad range of compositional devices, some of which he later developed further, such as his view of San Giovanni in Laterano, where he moves the facade close to the foreground and angles it away from the plane. Scott (1975) finds that Piranesi's style altered as soon as he switched to ancient ruins and that his plates 'came to life' through the use of a livelier graphic technique marked by furry lines with horizontal dashes, while the somewhat perfunctory treatment of the earliest views may have reflected Piranesi's limited interest in Renaissance buildings.' (Millard).
'In terms of their verisimilitude, a concern common to all artists, Piranesi's views stood out for the extraordinary visual relief of the monument they represented, achieved thanks to continually evolving perspective and spatial choices. His figurative language was exceptionally new, combining the atmospheric delicacy of the views by Canaletto and the spatial dynamics of Bibiena's set design tradition, as if the diagonal axes of a Bibiena stage set were the most appropriate fot organizing the fragmentary, chance irregularity that typified the contemporary character of Rome in Piranesi's mind - the Rome that had suffocated the immense, organic urban order of the ancient city under a formless mass.' (Ficacci).
A full list of plates is available on request.
[see Wilton-Ely pg. 90, Hind pp. 76 - 78, Focillon pp. 15 - 17; Wilton-Ely CI, 51 - 101; Focillon 72 - 119; Millard 84 (later issue?)].
Oblong 4to. (240 x 315 mm). Engraved title leaf and 93 engraved plates, printed recto only on laid paper, by Piranesi (48 plates, each signed 'Piranesi F' or 'Piranesi inc.'), Philotée-François Duflos (9 plates), Jean-Laurent Le Geay (8 plates), Jerôme Charles Bellicard (7 plates), Paolo Anesi (2 plates and the title?), the remaining plates (19) are unsigned but Wilton-Ely attributes 3 of these also to Piranesi (sheet size: 230 x 300mm); watermarks, where visible, appear to conform to Robison 7, 8 or 9, dating to the late 1740s or early 1750s. Contemporary patterned paper-covered boards, brown morocco title label with title gilt ('Varie Vedute di Roma / 1848') to front board, later endpapers.
#41227
