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.

Study of a Roman Altar.

Image not available
Workshop of Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778

Study of a Roman Altar.

ca. 1765-1775
Published

ca. 1765-1775

Black and red chalk on paper.
7 x 5 3/4 inches (179 x 145 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:37
Notes
This is a depiction by a member of Piranesi's workshop of the Roman Altar with Selene (Luna), the Dioscuri, Phosphoros (the Morning Star), and Hesperos (the Evening Star) now in the Louvre, inv. Ma508, but in Piranesi's time at the Villa Borghese. For another study of the same object, see Bernardino Ciferri's drawing at the British Museum, inv. 2103,5015.2.80. The work also appears as plate 21 of Winckelmann's "Monumenti Antichi Inediti" of 1767.
Inscriptions/Markings
Numbered at lower center, in graphite, "101 (?)".
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.

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. 37, repr.

Classification
Department
Century prints
School