Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Design for a wall panel with ornamental moldings. Verso: Sketch

Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778

Design for a wall panel with ornamental moldings. Verso: Sketch

ca. 1745-1747
11 5/16 x 11 1/16 inches (288 x 282 mm)
Pen and brown ink, over black chalk, on paper; squared in graphite; verso: black chalk.
1966.11:13

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

Notes
The measured squaring--not at right angles but seemingly conveying some perspective projection--suggests that this design was planned for a real architectural space, and the decorative style is that used in Venetian interiors of the time. An early biographer stated that Piranesi tried to win commissions for interior decoration during his trips home to Venice in the mid-1740s; one can imagine that this sheet was related to such a project.
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. 13, repr.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department