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Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Sketches of Ornament. Verso: sketches of ornament
ca. 1742-1743[?]
Black chalk on paper; verso: black chalk.
8 5/16 x 11 inches (211 x 279 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:123
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Inscription:
Inscribed at upper left, in pen and brown ink, "Lume di metallo / S. Lorenzo alla strada // alla Salita Monte Ollivetto / Carlini / g"; numbered at upper right, in graphite, "35"; on verso, "gros[s]o a piu // spado // meno".
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. 123, repr.
Notes:
Mario Bevilacqua, "The Young Piranesi: The Itineraries of His Formation," 2006, suggests, on the basis of the inscription, that these might be sketches done by Piranesi during his first trip to Naples in 1742-43.
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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