Giovanni Battista Piranesi

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Giovanni Battista Piranesi

1720-1778

Study of a Capital with Confronted Sphinxes (the Lyde Browne capital)

ca. 1760-1761

Red chalk, over black chalk, on paper.

3 1/2 x 5 7/16 inches (90 x 139 mm)

Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.

1966.11:19

Inscription:

Numbered at lower right, in graphite, "91".

Provenance:

Mrs. J. P. Morgan, New York; by descent to her sons Junius S. Morgan, Princeton and Paris (no mark, see Lugt 1536) and Henry S. Morgan, New York.

Bibliography:

Stampfle, Felice. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Dover, 1978, no. 19, repr.

Notes:

On same mat as 1966.11: 20; 40; 101.
In this drawing, Piranesi depicted a capital that was owned by Belisario Amidei, shortly before it was acquired by the English collector Lyde Browne. Browne later moved his antiquities from Rome to Wimbledon and then sold them to Catherine the Great. The ornate capital, with Egyptian sphinxes stylized into decorative forms, was precisely the sort of architectural motif that Piranesi prized. He included a print of it in the Della Magnificenza of 1761 and subsequently modeled the ionic capitals in the facade of Santa Maria del Priorato on its design.

Associated names:

Morgan, Jane Norton, 1868-1925, former owner.
Morgan, Junius Spencer, 1892-1960, former owner.
Morgan, Henry S. (Henry Sturgis), 1900-1982, former owner.

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Piranesi, Giovanni Battista

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