Giovanni Battista Piranesi

With printed inscription on paper IN ROMA MDCCLIII. / [L]ASTAMPERIA DI ANGELO ROTILJ / NEL PALAZZO DE’ MASSIMI. / CON LICENZA DE’ SUPERIORI.

Pen and brown ink, brown wash

248 x 178 mm (9 3/4 x 7 in.)

The author of the Carceri (Imaginary Prisons,1743-1746), of theAntichita romane (Roman Antiquities,1756), famous for his compositions of fantastic and colossal architectures has also abundantly drawn figure studies, mostly in pen and brown ink, sometimes with red chalk. He uses them to people his architectural capricci. Gesticulating, leading lively conversations, preaching, his figures are always engaged in all sorts of activities which look insignificant in comparison with the gigantism of the surrounding buildings.Piranesi knows how to animate them in just a few jerky strokes and a few pen accents.By skilfully exaggerating positions and carefully deforming anatomies, he is able to give them inordinately forceful expressiveness.

Professor Andrew Robison confirmed the authenticity of this drawing which he dates around the 1770’s on the basis of stylistic comparisons. He also remarked that the figure depicted it was drawn after the right-hand figure in Entellus and Dares, an engraving by Marco Dente. This engraving was probably executed after a drawing by Giulio Romano, which itself was executed after a antique low-relief nowadays in Museum Gregoriano Profano (inv. 9503). The subject is drawn from Virgil’s Aeneid and relates the fight between the young and arrogant Trojan Dares, and the older Sicilian Entellus (Livre V, 362-484). Entellus, the more sensible of the two, ends up winning. As most of Piranesi’s drawings, for instance those in the Pierpont Morgan Library, the present drawing is executed on etching paper. In fact on the verso can be seen part of plate VIII from Piranesi’sParere su l’Architetture. This work was published for the first time in 1765[1], yet Andrew Robinson claims that plate VIII was added only in 1769, which correlates the dating of our drawing.

A prolific artist, who produced swift and fruitful drawings, Piranesi never ceased to renew his inspiration by studying older forms and motifs in depth. He successfully modernised these forms, emancipated them from their context and instilled them with fresh energy. This approach characterised his method both for drawing and architecture.