Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78)

When Piranesi first arrived in Rome in 1740 there was an already established market for views of the city as Grand Tour souvenirs. His Vedute however, executed from about 1748 until the end of his life transcended mere topographical accuracy and became a heroic and tragic vision to the power of Roman architecture. Two aspects of Piranesi's Venetian background were key to the enabling of this vision: his training in engineering and stone construction which helped engender an appreciation of the effects of massive masonry - in particular the poetic effect of ruins - and his training in stage design which cultivated a sensitivity to effects of light and great skill in both linear and atmospheric perspective. These architectonic/scenographic concerns found heightened and highly personal expression in Piranesi's series of fantasic prison interiors - the Carceri d'Invenzione - which first appeared in the 1740's. Piranesi's work as a designer is characterised by a highly imaginative eclecticism of style, a trait reflecting his belief in a creative attitude towards the use of antique sources.

 Vedute di Roma

The etchings for the Vedute di Roma were sold as single plates or as collections, at first through his publishers Bouchard et Gravier. Piranesi would go each evening to Bouchard's shop to see which of his views sold best, and to hear customer's comments. The plates quickly became the rage, and all day the artist would work frenetically in his studio, refusing entrance to anyone. As his growing reputation brought admirers knocking at his studio door, he is reputed to have rudely shouted "Piranesi isn't in, you will find him at Bouchard's" ! We always have a large selection in stock, from the 1st Rome edition and 1st and 2nd Paris editions. Prices vary from £500 - £2500. Average size: 400x533mm. Please contact us for an upto date list.

Antichita Romane

The Antichita illustrate the tombs along the Appian Way and similar areas outside the city. While the tombs and their builders are mostly unknown, these plates are among Piranesi's most romantic views, his crumbling masonry given weight and grandeur by the low viewpoints, the strong light affects and the tiny figures of tourists, peasants and goats. Piranesi's studies of the antiquities of Rome was one of the great archaeological works of its era; appealing both to the architects and designers of the day as well as to the students of the past. While its influence spread across Europe, it was most eagerly studied in England, where it led in 1757 to Piranesi's election as an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. First published in Rome in 1756, the following plates are from the second Rome edition of 1761. We always have a large selection in stock, from the 1st Rome edition and 1st and 2nd Paris editions. Prices vary from £100 - £2000. Average size: 590x395mm. Please contact us for an upto date list.  

Carceri d'Invenzione

In these haunting images a sense of threat both real and implied, is combined with with an illusion of infinite space (the result of the diagonal system of perspective used, itself derived from the innovative stage designs of the Bibiena family). The conflation, compounded further by the often frantic character of Piranesi's line, gives rise to what John Wilton-Ely has decribed as "a nervous continuum with no point of stability or rest throughout". We always have a large selection in stock, from the 1st Rome edition and 1st and 2nd Paris editions. Prices vary from £750 - £2200. Average size: 450x590mm. Please contact us for an upto date list.  

David Roberts.

The Holy Land, Syria, Idumaea, Arabia, Egypt & Nubia. 

London, F. G. Moon 1842-9. Tinted lithographs by Louis Haghe. Faithful modern hand-colouring, except where noted. Some with text on verso

Roberts famous views of the scenery of the Middle East. David Roberts R.A. (1796-1864), was born at Stockbridge near Edinburgh, the son of a shoemaker. After an apprenticeship as a house painter, he joined a travelling circus as a scene painter, eventually working in London for Drury Lane. Gradually he abandoned the theatrical world for that of the London galleries and exhibited his work at the Royal Academy and British Institution. He left London for the Middle East in August 1838, sailing direct to Alexandria and spending two and a half months travelling through Egypt recording the monumental ruins along the Nile. Roberts left Cairo for the Holy Land on February 7th 1839. Accompanied by two chance met Englishmen, they attached themselves to a group of Beduin for the eleven day camel ride across the Sinai to St. Catherine’s. After expeditions to Aquaba, Petra, Hebron, Gaza and Jaffa, he arrived at Jerusalem on Good Friday, where he received much encouragement from the Turkish Governor. Roberts made his way north to the Mediterranean via Nablus and Nazareth, recording on the way his impressions of Acre, Tyre and Sidon. However, by the time he reached Baalbek war had broken out between Turkey and Egypt and he was forced to turn west for Beirut and home. Roberts, a sound business man hoped that his Eastern lithographs would be ‘one of the richest folios that ever left the East’ , and indeed Abbey claims that it is ‘one of the most important and elaborate ventures of nineteenth century publishing’. (See Bibliography inside front cover). We always have a large selection in stock, please contact us for an up to date list.

Francesco Aquila after Raphael Sanzio da Urbino

Stanze del Vaticano. Picturae Sanctii Urbinatis ex Aula et Conclavibus Palatii Vaticani.

Rome, Domenici de Rossi 1722. Copper engravings. 540x680mm. Narrow margins

Detailed engravings of Raphael’s magnificent cycle of frescoes executed between 1509-14, and situated in the suite of medium-sized rooms in the Vatican papal apartments in which the pope himself lived and worked; these rooms are known simply as the Stanze. The intention of the Stanze frescoes was principally the glorification of the papacy and the illustration of the heroic acts of the popes.  Raphael had been called to Rome toward the end of 1508 by Pope Julius II at the suggestion of the architect Donato Bramante. At this time Raphael was little known in Rome, but the young man soon made a deep impression on the volatile Julius and the papal court, and his authority as a master grew day by day. We have a collection of these engravings, prices £180 - £220.

Giuseppe Vasi after Emmanuel Rodrigues de St. Lusitano

Latus Templi lugubri apparatu exornatum.

Rome, 1751. Copper engraving. 480x540mm. Trimmed within platemark and remargined, misc small marginal repairs, repairs to centrefold. £300

A very elaborate detailed design for a rococco, domed mortuary chapel or mausoleum. The coffin lies under a corinthian baldichine, with ermine drapes, on the right are three curtained niches lit by huge candelabra for other bodies, while numerous figures of Death as a skeleton and putti bearing more candlebra adorn the walls and columns.  

Paulus Decker

Fürstlicher Baumeister / Architectura Civilis &c. Augsburg, Peterdetlesen, Johann Jacob Lotter for Jeremias Wolff 1711. Copper engravings by Joseph Montalegre, Johanes Auguste Corvinus, Gottfried Stein, Carl Remshart, Johannes Bathasar Probst et al. Average size: 410x460m

The most sumptutous, large, detailed German baroque and rococo architectural copper engravings of interiors of palaces and churches, most richly engraved by the best artists of the period, but all personally designed by the architect and artistic draughtsman Paulus Decker, the Elder (1677-1713), the most famous exponent of the baroque and extreme rococco in Europe. We have a large collection in stock priced between £150 - £250.

Pierre-François Hugues d’Hancarville

Antiquités étrusques, grecques et romaines : tirées du cabinet du M. William Hamilton, envoyé extraordinaire de. S.M. Britanique en cour de Naples.

Collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman antiquities from the cabinet of the Honble. Wm. Hamilton, His Britannick Maiesty's envoy extraordinary at the court of Naples.

Naples, François Morelli 1766-67. Copper engravings. Original hand-colouring. 130x160mm – 450x710mm

Sumptuous, seminal illustrations, now very rare, of Greco-Roman vases, in the renowned collection of Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803). Sir William had become British Envoy Extraordinary at Naples between 1764-1800, where he had not only made a study of the volcanoes of Vesuvius and Etna, witnessing the 1776-7 eruptions, but also formed a huge collection of Etruscan and classical vases and antiquities, some of which he sold to the British Museum in 1772. Hamilton was one of the first Englishmen to collect and appreciate classical vases. Although he valued them chiefly as good models for modern artists rather than as archaeological finds or ancient works of art. He is said to have ridiculed antiquarians by training his pet monkey to hold a collector's magnifying glass. Hamilton’s second wife Emma Hart (1761-1815), had become Admiral Nelson’s mistress in 1798 (his ‘Bequest to the Nation’), and Hamilton’s last collection of vases, part of which was lost at sea on the Colossus, was sold to Thomas Hope in 1801 (also later acquired by the British Museum). Each plate shows the decoration on a vase, both the earlier black figure and the slightly later red figure styles, each with its chracteristic patterned border, delicately executed in black etched line and ground, with terracotta (bistre) and white hand-colouring. Printed in an edition of 500 copies only, and costing Hamilton the princely sum of £6000 to publish, Hamilton’s brother in law, the diplomat Lord Cathcart showed proofs of these plates to Josiah Wedgewood, just at the time the celebrated potter was building his new factory at Etruria near Burslem. They had a profound effect on the work of this artist / craftsman, and were one of the earliest influences in forming his neo-classical style. In 1769 Wedgewood and his partner Thomas Bentley celebrated the opening of the factory by throwing six black vases which were painted in red encaustic enamel with three figures taken directly from Hamilton’s book. The antiquarian, adventurer and swindler Pierre-Francois Hugues d’Hancarville (1719-1805) became a friend of the gullible and naïve Hamilton, to whom he was introduced at Naples. Son of a bankrupt cloth merchant of Nancy, Hancarville was born Pierre-Francois Hugues, adding the title ‘Baron’ and the aristocratic surname Hancarville himself. Hancarville had a prodigious memory enabling him to excel at ancient languages and mathematics. He worked hard on the chronological development of the items in Sir William’s collection, but unfortunately in 1769 was forced to flee his creditors in Naples, taking some of the plates for his patron’s book with him. We have a large collection of these plates in stock, ranging in price from £140 to £1500.     

Emanuel Sweerts

Florilegium. Amsterdam & Frankfurt, Erasmus Kempfner 1614-20. Copper engravings. Fine and rare original hand-colouring. Average size 330x215mm

Emanuel Sweerts (1552-1612), was born on Zevenbergen, Holland and spent most of his working life in Amsterdam. A successful entrepreneur and artist, he also sold shells, fossils and other curiosities of natural history to wealthy patrons. During his lifetime there was a tremendous growth in imports to Europe of exotic plants and animals from the Dutch East Indies, Ottoman Empire, Cape of Good Hope and the Americas. Whereas previously plants had principally been grown for their culinary and medicinal properties, they were now beginning to be appreciated for their decorative attributes as well. Sweerts was clever enough to take advantage of this new trade and the plentiful supplies arriving in Amsterdam to supplement his business by dealing in these rare exotic plants. His main showcase was the great annual Frankfurt Fair and he soon started to supply some of the greatest gardens in Europe, including those of the Hapsburg Emperor Rudolph II at Vienna. While Sweerts' striking floral engravings are now an important source for the botanical historian, they were actually issued as a detailed trade catalogue, illustrating the varieties Sweerts had for sale. For this reason the engravings always bear signs of continual use, repairs, damp and finger print staining &c.  We have a large selection in stock, please contact us for an up to date list.