- Museum number
- 1908,0616.21
- Description
-
Two semi-circular buildings with coffered recesses connected by an arcade
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, over red chalk
- Production date
- 1745-1755
- Dimensions
-
Height: 159 millimetres
-
Width: 262 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The inscription - Idea showing the abuse that the Romans have made of the Greek style - is surely meant ironically as the drawing is intended to demonstrate the variety and inventiveness of the Roman use of the classical vocabulary. Piranesi was a passionate defender of the superiority and originality of Roman architecture against those like Laugier, Winkelmann and others who put forward the rival claims of Greece in various publications in the 1750s (for this topic see J. Scott, 'Piranesi', New York and London, 1975, pp. 149-159) . As the drawing is stylistically so similar to the drawing on the same mount (1908,0616.20), and as a result normally dated to before 1750 (see the entry for the latter), the inscription has perplexed scholars because the debate on this issue only came about in the 1750s. In an effort to resolve this Wilton-Ely even went so far as to suggest that the inscription might have been added later by the artist, ignoring the fact that it is written in the same shade of ink as the drawing and that a space for an inscription has clearly been left at the bottom of the sheet. Both drawings in fact fit much more comfortably in terms of style with studies from a few years after 1750, and as a result the inscription poses no problems in terms of chronology.
HC
Lit.: E. Croft-Murray, in exhib. cat., BM, 'Giovanni Battista Piranesi', 1968, no. 116; J.-F. Méjanès, in exhib. cat., Rome, Villa Medici, Dijon, Palais des États de Bourgogne and Paris, Hôtel de Sully, 'Piranèse et les Français', 1976, no. 149; J. Wilton-Ely, in exhib. cat., London, South Bank, 'Piranesi', 1978, no. 193b
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1968 BM, 'Piranesi', no. 23
1976 May-Jun, Rome, Villa Medici, 'Piranesi and the French', no. 149
1976 Jul-Sept, Dijon, Musee des Beaux-Arts, 'Piranesi', no. 149
1976 Oct-Nov, Paris, Hotel de Sully, 'Piranesi', no. 149
1978, London, Hayward Gallery, 'Piranesi', no. 193b
1988 Apr-May, Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, 'Piranisi's Prisons', no. 19
2002/3, Oct-April, BM, 'Piransesi's 'Carceri' (Prisons)', (no cat.)
2003 May-July, Sth Bank Tour, Northumbria Univ Gall, Piranesi's Carceri
2003 July-Oct, Sth Bank Tour, York, City AG, Piranesi's Carceri
2003 Oct-Dec, Sth Bank Tour, Milton Keynes AG, Piranesi's Carceri
2003/4 Dec-Feb, Sth Bank Tour, Bath, Victoria AG, Piranesi's Carceri
2020 20 Feb-9 Aug, London, BM, 'Piranesi drawings'.
- Acquisition date
- 1908
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1908,0616.21
