drawing
- Museum number
- 1908,0616.24
- Description
-
A forum with triumphal arches
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1752-1760
- Dimensions
-
Height: 100 millimetres
-
Width: 151 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- As Croft-Murray correctly noted, Thomas' dating of 1745-50 for this is too early as the invoice of works purchased from Piranesi written on the back of the sheet includes the 'Antichità Romane' first published in 1756. The three drawings on the mount (the others 1908,0616.25/6) look to be from the late 1750s or from the first half of the 1760s, comparable in the rather scratchy penwork to 1908,0616.5. The present study seems to be a preliminary idea for the composition laid out in more detail in the two drawings below it on the mount.
HC
Lit.: H.O. Corfiato, 'Piranesi compositions', London, 1951, p. 3; H. Thomas, 'The Drawings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi', London, 1954, under no. 24; E. Croft-Murray, in exhib. cat., BM, 'Giovanni Battista Piranesi', 1968, no. 128; J. Wilton-Ely, in exhib. cat., London, South Bank, 'Piranesi', 1978, no. 44a
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1968 BM, 'Piranesi', no. 27
1978 Hayward Gallery, 'Piranesi', no. 44a
2020 20 Feb-9 Aug, London, BM, 'Piranesi's drawings'.
- Acquisition date
- 1908
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1908,0616.24
