Giovanni Battista Piranesi

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Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Design for a Chimneypiece with a Tablet and Medallions
ca. 1769-1771
Pen and brown ink on paper cut to an L-shape; extraneous lines in black chalk; verso: black and red chalk.
4 11/16 x 6 9/16 (top) inches (120 x 166 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:83

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Notes: 

Stampfle noted that drawings 1966.11:73, 1966.11:74, 1966.11:75, and 1966.11:83 form a sequence, leading up to 1966.11:77. William Rieder (1975) has suggested a connection between the drawings and the Piranesi chimneypiece at Gorhambury, which was commissioned by Edward Walter, who was in Rome from 1769-71.
Drawing is on verso of a fragment of sheet with sketches and computations; on same mat as 1966.11:82.

Inscription: 

Numbered at lower center, in graphite, "101".

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.
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.

Bibliography: 

Stampfle, Felice. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Dover, 1978, no. 83, repr.

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