The Illumination of the Cross in St. Peter's Basilica (recto), Ancient Roman Battle Scene - perhaps The Death of Lucius Aemilius Paullus at the Battle of Cannae, (verso)

Trained as an architect, Louis Jean Desprez won the Prix de Rome in 1776 and arrived in Italy the following year. While there, he shifted his focus from architectural design to painting and came to specialize in producing dramatic views of sites in Rome and Southern Italy. By 1781 Desprez was associated with Francesco Piranesi, and the two were said to be at work on a suite of views of Rome and Southern Italy, for which drawings by Desprez would be turned into large, hand-colored etchings by Piranesi. The first item in the suite was this view of the Illuminated Cross in St. Peter's. It shows an event that took place during Holy Week, when a 24-foot-tall cross was suspended from the dome of St. Peter's and illuminated with 628 candles. Combining the grandeur of the basilica's architecture and the dramatic, picturesque scene of worshippers in a candle-lit setting, the subject fit Desprez's artistic inclinations perfectly, and must also have seemed to Francesco Piranesi a fitting continuation of his father's work. Prior to creating this large final study, which served as the model for Piranesi's etching, Desprez studied the scene in as many as ten earlier drawings at a small scale. Although he and Piranesi planned a group of 48 views, the project was abandoned when Desprez accepted an invitation to accompany King Gustav III back to Sweden, where he would be responsible above all for stage designs at the Royal Opera, a field in which he would be remembered as one of the great pioneers of the eighteenth century.
This drawing was engraved in the same direction by Jean-Duplessis-Bertaux and Charles Guttenberg in the Abbé de Saint Non's "Voyage pittoresque ou description des royaumes de Naples et de Sicile", Paris, 1781-86, vol. III, pp. 77-78, pl. 37.
Watermark: Behive in shield. Watermark, Beta radiograph. Beehive in shield.
Watermark: Countermark & ZOONEN. Watermark (countermark), beta radiograph.