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PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1788)
Ruine di Sepolcro antico posto dinanzi ad altre ruine d'un Aquedotto [6]
[6]. [Rome: mid 1770s - 1790]. Etched plate, on laid paper, by Piranesi.Watermark "AMG SERARFNI FABRIANO". In good condition with large margins. Sheet size: 20 7/8 x 15 inches.
Early Piranesi masterpiece from "Prima Parte di Architetture..." included in "Opere Varie"
This early Piranesi anticipates the major themes of his career: a fascination with ruins and specifically the artisitc remains of ancient Rome. Here he portrays a somewhat chaotic scene in which an ancient tomb is being explored by three rather excited explorers, each of whom is pointing in a different direction. A stream, ultimately from the ruined aqueduct behind and above, presumably, runs through the pile to make a little waterfall, which in turn joins a small river. It's impossible to mentally reconstruct the various monuments, they've become something else. Various forms of vegetation have established themselves amid the wreckage; everything, once functional and meaningful, is now decayed, useless and somehow irrational. But for Piranesi, like the exited sightseers, it is a scene of immense fascination and beauty, and a depiction of time itself with its brief, scurrying humans and slowly decaying monuments and memories.
Ficacci 6; Focillon 6; Wilton-Ely 6.
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#20523 $800.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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