Three works by father and son Piranesi: Campus Martius, Paestum & Herculaneum

Giovanni Battista Piranesi:

Campus Martius Antiquae Urbis.

[Rome 1762], possibly first Paris issue, 1807. Printed on thick, unwatermarked laid paper. Volume size 53,5 x 40,5 cms. 52 etched plates (4 double-page or folding). No letterpress text in this issue.

Etchings: Latin title page + Italian title page + Index plate (2 columns of text to be joined to the sides of the ”Scenographia Campi Martii”) + 49 plates: 1-18 (no 5-10 is a large joined map), [19], 20-26, [27], 28-33, [34], 35-46, [47], 48, and with unnumbered plate ”Labrum aegyptiacum” at end.

Four plates of the very first issue were replaced at a very early date: ”Nonnulla monumenta sepulcralia”, ”Sepulchrum Mariae Honorij Imp. Uxoris” and ”Stylobata Columnae cochliodis”, originally vignettes in the text of the first issue, replace the original plates 19, 34, and 47, and the plate ”Veterum Aquae Marciae ductuum”, originally planned for another work, replaces plate 27. The final plate in this copy, ”Labrum aegyptiacum porphyreticum” was also printed with the text of the first issue (with the Italian dedication to Robert Adam), but was later included at end with engraved number ”49” (but remains unnumbered in the present copy).

Large joined map creased and worn with tears at centre folds and with a few recent chalk annotations on verso, Scenographia Campi Martii a little creased and with a short marginal tear, else fine with just a few insignificant marginal tears and very light foxing to some plates, mostly confined to margins.

Bound with:

Giovanni Battista & Francesco Piranesi:

[Paestum.] Differentes vues de quelques restes de trois grands édifices qui subsistent encore dans le milieu de l'ancienne ville de Pesto autrement Possidonia, et qui est située dans la Lucanie.

[Rome 1778-9], but possibly first Paris issue, and before 1836. Volume size 53,5 x 40,5 cms. Etched title + 20 double-page plates. (Plates 10 and 12 were removed by Ivar Tengbom in 1937 for framing, the same impressions are supplied here loosely laid in at end, brittle and heavily browned.)

Plates lightly foxed, several plates with area of minimal paper loss in upper margin, apparently a paper flaw.

Bound with:

Francesco Piranesi:

Il teatro d'Ercolano, alla maestà di Gustavo III, re di Svezia.

[Rom, Salomoni, 1783], possibly first Paris issue, 1804-7. Volume size 53,5 x 40,5 cms. Etched title + 9 double-page plates. No letterpress text in this issue.

Occasional very slight foxing, more so on final plate.

Francesco Piranesi accompanied his father Giovanni on a trip to Herculaneum, Paestum, and south of Naples in 1778. Giovanni died that year with Francesco taking over his father’s publishing house. Five years later Francesco issued the prints of Herculaneum in 1783. The work is dedicated to King Gustav III of Sweden, who travelled in Italy in 1783-4.

Three Piranesi works bound in early 19th-century half calf, marbled sides and edges; worn, spine cracked, joints mended. All the plates are printed on the same thick, unwatermarked laid paper, the only watermark is to be found on endleaves (”J Whatman Turkey Mill 1822”). Oval stamp (and chalk annotations on pastedowns) of Buchhandlung Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin.

Recent provenance: Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom (1878-1968), one of the best-known representatives of the Swedish neo-classical architecture of the 1910s and 1920s; with the Tengbom family to date.

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