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.

A Colonnaded Stage

Carlo Galli Bibiena
1721-1787

A Colonnaded Stage

ca. 1750
10 7/8 x 15 5/8 inches (277 x 397 mm)
Pen and brown and black ink, and gray wash, on paper.
2023.105

Gift of Jules Fisher.

Notes
This drawing by Carlo Bibiena dates to early in his career, perhaps to around 1750 when he was assisting his father, Giuseppe, at the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth. The architectural structure exemplifies Carlo's formal, restrained draftsmanship; unusually, however, work continued on the sheet even after the highly finished framework was complete. Festoons were added atop the proscenium and columns, and ghostly scrolls were sketched on some of the plinths at left. Fragments of paper attached to the column plinths at right show disembodied hooves or feet, indicating some additional decoration that was glued to the surface but later removed and lost.
Inscriptions/Markings
"2 Ld" in graphite in upper right corner of verso and "97617-8" in graphite along lower left edge of verso.
Watermark: Strasbourg lily on lining.
Associated names
Fisher, Jules, former owner.
Bibliography
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Architecture, Theater, and Fantasy: Bibena Drawings from the Jules Fisher Collection", 2021. Exh. cat., no. 26, repr.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department