print;
title-page
- Museum number
- 1873,1213.906
- Title
-
Object: Title-page: Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome Ancienne
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Series: Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome Ancienne
- Description
-
Title-page to volume, with letterpress publication details and etched plate depicting a scene of Roman ruins with numerous putti gathered around a ruined column and two reclining in the centre foreground, Rome, 1761
Etching and letterpress
- Production date
- 1761
- Dimensions
-
Height: 101 millimetres
-
Height: 525 millimetres
-
Width: 370 millimetres (each sheet, c.)
-
Width: 186 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Title-page to series see 1873,1213.906-1033 for entire series.
Volume of Jean Barbault’s ‘Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome’ published in Rome 1761 by Bouchard et Gravier and printed by Komarek. This particular volume is bound in blue leather with gold tooling depicting the British royal insignia on the front and with the title, date and location of publication on the spine.
The volume comprises some 128 plates which depict a variety of scenes including vedute of ancient ruins and monuments in Rome and studies of antique sculptural and architectural fragments and objects. The plates are etched and in a range of scales, often with two plates to a sheet. 73 of the larger plates are numbered, 53 with a relevant page reference. The plates are accompanied by Barbault’s text (in French), which often elucidates further detail on the subject of the illustrations on the corresponding page. For instance, the three plates depicting the obelisks and columns located in Rome accompany a lengthy description of the individual monuments (1873,1213.961-963), while the plate depicting the ‘Autel d’Apollon’ (1873,1213.1001) faces an explication of the object’s subject and alleged function. However, the plates inserted at the back of the volume (1873,1213.1011-1033), which depict antique sculptures and bas-reliefs, are unaccompanied by descriptive text, but rather in a number of instances have a more lengthy title and description included on the plate itself.
Over 100 of the signatures on the plate assert the involvement of Barbault in their production, and Barbault was certainly the designer and etcher of a large proportion of the plates. At least 48 of the views of Rome were the result of the ongoing collaboration between Barbault and the vedutist Domenico Montagù, who also contributed etchings to Barbault’s ‘Les Plus Beaux Edifices de Rome Moderne’ (Rome, 1763), and who produced at least 37 etchings for the ‘Nuova Raccolta delle piu' belle vedute di Roma dissegnate, e intagliate da celebri autori’ (Rome, 1761) (see 1892,0804.6.0-50 for a volume of the 1771 edition). While a large proportion of Montagù’s etchings were produced after drawings by Barbault, their fundamental quality demonstrates a reliance on the vedute of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, with whom both Barbault and Montagù shared the publisher Bouchard et Gravier.
A further 6 plates refer to the involvement of a certain J(o). or I. Bouchard, either as draughtsman or etcher. This may be Jean Bouchard of Bouchard et Gravier. The work of other artists mentioned on the plates include Freicenet as the etcher of four plates (1873,1213.932;969;1017;1022) and two plans after the cartographic work of Giovanni Battista Nolli (1873,1213.973) and Leonardo Bufalini, who is lettered on the plate as I. Rufalino, (1873,1213.977). The ‘Plan des Thermes de Diocletian’ is anonymous but is likely copied after a pre-existing work by an unspecified cartographer (1873.1213.970).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1873
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1873,1213.906
