Giovanni Battista Piranesi | Vasi, candelabri, cippi... [Rome], 1778, 2 volumes

Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi Sarcofagi, Tripodi Lucerne ed Ornamenti Antichi.[Rome], 1778

2 volumes, oblong folio (530 x 760 mm.), 100 unnumbered etched, engraved, and drypoint plates (only, of 106 called for in BAL RIBA), including folding engraved title in vol.1, contemporary half calf over marbled boards, plate 2 creased and with inner margin renewed, plates 12, 19, 53, 94 and 99 with closed tears (mostly marginal, some with paper repairs to versos), some creasing and dampstaining, extremities rubbed, lacking plates 61, 62, 73, 77, 90, and 106 called for by BAL RIBA

PIRANESI'S LAST WORK, WITH EXCEPTIONAL PROVENANCE. This volume once belonged to Thomas Giffard (1764-1823), the scion of one of the oldest Catholic families in Europe, whose family seat at Chillington, Staffordshire, has been held since 1178. During the late-eighteenth-century, they enjoyed a significant increase in wealth and social status. Starting in 1783, Thomas undertook the Grand Tour in the company of his tutor, with his itinerary encompassing France, Germany, and Italy, Spa, Dusseldorf, Munich, and Rome (which he arrived in in the Spring of 1784). Thomas would have acquired the present volume as a souvenir of his journey of cultural edification, alongside the other Piranesi works in the present sale (lots 81, 82, and 84).

This work includes illustrations of famous vases such as the Warwick vase in addition to his own fanciful designs. As was often the case, Piranesi acknowledges the patronage of European Milords by dedicating the images to his clientele. Piranesi was a man of many talents and being in Rome he traded antiquities. He once owned the Warwick vase, passing it on to the Earl of Warwick in 1774.

Like the BAL RIBA copy, the present copy has unnumbered plates, suggesting early impressions of the plates. (At some point between 1779 and 1786, "a more solid order appears to have been decided upon, and the plates were given etched numbers for the first time" (BAL RIBA, p. 1509)).

In the first volume, the plates present match the BAL RIBA copy, with the exception of plate 2: here "Altre Vedute in prospettiva dello stesso Tripode | Al Signor Guglielmo Macdowell" but "Altra Veduta del già descritto Vaso" in BAL RIBA. In the second volume, the plates present also match the BAL RIBA copy, with the exception of the missing plates listed above, and also with the exception of plates 64 and 72 (66 and 75 in BAL RIBA, respectively), where in each case the ordering of the two separate single-page coppers printed on the same double leaf has been reversed.

PROVENANCE:

Thomas Giffard (1764-1823), of Chillington Hall, Staffordshire; thence by descent

LITERATURE:

Hind, p. 87; BAL RIBA 2568