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| INTRODUCTION TO PIRANESI: ARCHITECTURAL MASTERPIECES |
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who was born in 1720 near Venice, was an architect, the visionary and imaginative artist of the famous Carceri, stylized romantic prisons, and an archaeologist who worked for years to prove the misconception that Roman architecture had Etruscan rather than Greek sources. He also became a collector of Roman antiquities, established himself a studio for their restoration, and functioned as a dealer, etching magnificent renderings of the items he purveyed. The great architectural etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi are significant in the history of art for several reasons. In the first place, Piranesi’s enthusiastic celebration of the ruins of Imperial Rome provided an important impulse in the preservation and restoration of important architectural sites. Secondly, his dynamic vision of classicism contributed richly to the emergence of the classical style in the 18th and early 19th centuries. His friendship with Robert Adam provided a direct link between his aesthetic and the development of British architecture and decorative arts. His views of Rome also document the development of Baroque Rome. Finally, Piranesi commanded a graphic technique that remains unsurpassed, and his finest plates reveal the communicative force subtly that is possible in this medium. Piranesi made sketches directly on the site of those famous scenes represented in his magnificent views of Rome. He would mark the play of light and shade at various times of day and, as well, he would return to these sites to study the appearance of the structures in the softer light of the moon. Apparently these images fixed themselves in his mind, because the sketches he produced on site are mere indications, realized in a kind of visual shorthand that would stimulate his memory when he began work on the actual process of etching. Before beginning work on the copper plate itself, he would prepare a loose drawing, the size of the etching, in which he would mark out the basic parts of the composition. He would either trace this drawing onto the copperplate or prick through the paper to the surface, which he had coated with varnish, wax, and linseed oil, darkened with candle smoke. When asked why he didn’t produce a more detailed drawing to serve as a model for the etching he replied: "I’d be sorry to do that. Don’t you see if my drawing was finished, my plate would only be a copy? ... When I create the effects on the copper I am producing something original." Piranesi’s masterpieces of etching are original in the best sense of the word. He did not conceive of etching as the means to communicate, in multiple copies, the sense of drawing. The communication takes place within the form of etching itself. After the drawing with a needle had exposed the copperplate, it would be ready to bathe in acid, the aqua forte. Those areas in which the copperplate was available to the cutting of the acid would, of course, hold the ink that would print the image. Piranesi would paint those areas to be more lightly etched with varnish, and some of his plates would he treated with acid ten or twelve times before the plate was inked and the first proof pulled. In the past twenty years, fine impressions of Piranesi’s etchings have become increasingly more rare. Many of the Vedute went through several states during Piranesi’s lifetime, and the comparison of the states provides insight into the dynamics of his imagination as he continues to work and re-work a plate. The roman impressions, printed during the artist’s lifetime, are the most desirable. In 1798, twenty years after Piranesi’s death, his son Francesco took almost all of his father's copper plates to Paris. The impressions run first in Paris often remain bright and clear and, as the Roman prints disappear from the marketplace, good impressions from the First Paris Edition become only slightly less desirable than the Roman. Later Paris editions which display one or two sets of Arabic numbers, typically in the upper right hand corner, only rarely hold the kind of quality the real collector seeks. Piranesi’s etchings printed after 1835 bear a blind stamp (without ink): first the stamp of Fimin-Didot in Paris, then after the plates were returned to Italy, the stamp of Calcografia Nazionale for recent impressions. The collection of Piranesi’s etchings at Lyons Ltd. consists mainly of roman impressions, supplemented by a few good quality prints from the First Paris Editions. The present collection represents an intensive worldwide search. We hold no impressions from the later editions. We include this information about the later editions, particularly those with the blind stamp, to help our clients as they encounter a range of different editions in their own collecting. The works and projects of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, who died in 1778, were continued by his sons Francesco and Pietro Piranesi, aided it is said by his daughter, Laura. Of the children, Francesco is by far the most important. Francesco’s own work was ponderous and lacked the lyricism that characterized the work of his father, the elder Piranesi. In 1799 the two brothers moved their whole stock to Paris, receiving encouragement and official support from the then established, Napoleonic government. Between 1800 and 1807, they reissued their father’s work in its entirety along with numerous additions of their own work including a series of prints after paintings and drawings by other engravers. Their restikes began a 19th century industry of poor quality impressions of this great artist’s work.
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