Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Sketches for Chimneypieces and a Candelabrum
ca. 1766-1770
20 inches (508 mm); 17 5/16 x 25 inches (455 x 635 mm)
Black chalk, pen and brown ink, on paper with strip along upper left removed.
1966.11:92
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
Notes
Piranesi seems to have filled large sheets of paper with his sketches of chimneypieces and candelabra, but most of these sheets were later cut into fragments to isolate the individual designs; this is a rare example of a sheet surviving largely intact, with seven chimneypieces, sketches of individual motifs, and a candelabrum. While there is much on this sheet that seems familiar from the plates of the Diverse Maniere, none of the chimneypieces, nor the candelabrum, relates directly to any of the published plates.
The drawing is on the reverse of a map of northern Italy, which Carolyn Yerkes has recently identified as a plate that accompanied Pio Fantoni's "Della Inalveazione de' Fiumi Del Bolognese, e Della Romagna," published in Rome in 1766 by the Pagliarini brothers, who had published Piranesi's "Prima Parte." Most copies of the map are folded many times in order to be inserted into the back of the book; Piranesi evidently received a copy of the map from the Pagliarini before that happened.
The drawing is on the reverse of a map of northern Italy, which Carolyn Yerkes has recently identified as a plate that accompanied Pio Fantoni's "Della Inalveazione de' Fiumi Del Bolognese, e Della Romagna," published in Rome in 1766 by the Pagliarini brothers, who had published Piranesi's "Prima Parte." Most copies of the map are folded many times in order to be inserted into the back of the book; Piranesi evidently received a copy of the map from the Pagliarini before that happened.
Inscriptions/Markings
Inscribed at right with computations, in pen and brown ink; at top, "alabastro / marmo / alabastro / porfido // camino // due compagni // gola // medusa"; at bottom, "B bianco // a porfido // medusa // cigno" cerrula (?)".
Watermark: Fleur-de-lis inside circle, surmounted by V, centered on chain line.
Watermark: Fleur-de-lis inside circle, surmounted by V, centered on chain line.
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.
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. 92, repr.
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