Giovanni Battista PIRANESI (1720 - 1778) : Veduta dell’ Anfiteatro Flavio, detto il Colosseo [View of the Flavian Amphitheatre, Called the Colosseum] - 1757
Price: € 7 000
Etching, 442 x 703 mm. Hind 57, 1st state (of 4).
Impression of the 1st state (of 4), before the price is erased.
Very fine impression of the first issue, printed on laid watermarked paper (fleur-de-lis in a double circle, similar to Hind 3 or Robison 33, as seen on contemporary impressions). Very good overall condition, slight vertical crease in the middle, large margins (sheet: 535 x 785 mm).
In Veduta dell’ Anfiteatro Flavio, detto il Colosseo, Piranesi opts for a tight framing around the Colosseum, which he will adopt again nearly twenty years later in another plate from the Vedute di Roma series: Veduta dell’ Anfiteatro Flavio, detto il Colosseo [View of the Flavian Amphitheatre, called the Colosseum - Bird’s-eye view]. The distorted, panoramic perspective allows the viewer to take in the entire preserved section of the monumental four-level façade at a glance.
The first three levels feature arcades separated by columns in Doric, Ionic and Corinthian styles. The top floor has windows and is topped by a cornice. You can see the protruding stones that were used to plant masts around the Colosseum and stretch ropes to support a huge velarium to protect spectators from the sun. The text engraved at the bottom of the plate provides information about these remains of the velarium, the use of the various entrances, the buildings adjacent to it, and the damage suffered by the amphitheatre over time.
References: Arthur Mayger Hind: Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A critical study, with a list of his published works, 1922; Andrew Robison: Piranesi: Early Architectural Fantasies; a Catalogue Raisonné of the Etchings, 1986.