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Auction archive: Lot number 649

PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778) Lettere di giustific...

Estimate
US$6,000 - US$9,000
Price realised:
US$13,750
Auction archive: Lot number 649

PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778) Lettere di giustific...

Estimate
US$6,000 - US$9,000
Price realised:
US$13,750
Beschreibung:

PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778). Lettere di giustificazione scritte a Milord Charlemont e à di lui agenti di Roma ... intorno la dedica della sua opera delle Antichitá Rom[ane] fatta allo stesso signor ed ultimamente soppressa . Rome: [G.B. Piranesi], 1757.
PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778). Lettere di giustificazione scritte a Milord Charlemont e à di lui agenti di Roma ... intorno la dedica della sua opera delle Antichitá Rom[ane] fatta allo stesso signor ed ultimamente soppressa . Rome: [G.B. Piranesi], 1757. Small 2 o (254 x 188 mm). Etched dedication leaf [W.-E. 739] with medallion portrait with initials "J.C.," possibly those of James Caulfield [see below] pasted over original dedication; title-page [W.-E. 738, state one of two early states], and 8 plates, one double-page and folding [W.-E. 745 (early state)-752]. 4 head-pieces [W.-E. 740-743] and one tail-piece [W.-E. 744], by and after Piranesi. (Very light spotting on dedication and title leaves.) 18th-century English red half morocco, marbled boards (slightly rubbed). Provenance : inscription "Ex Dono Autoris J.C." on title: possibly James Caulfield, fourth Viscount and first Earl of Charlemont (1728-1799, to whom the Lettere are addressed; Sir Henry Fitz Herbert (bookplate); acquired from Bernard Quaritch, 1981. [ Bound at end :] Piranesi's two-leaf letter of retraction. 4 o , letterpress, double-column. [Rome: not before 15th March 1758 (date of the letter)]. FIRST EDITION, WITH THE TITLE AND FIRST PLATE IN EARLY STATES, OF PIRANESI'S RARE POLEMIC, which disowned Lord Charlemont's patronage and set out Piranesi's own view of the relationship between artist and patron. The Irish nobleman and politician James Caulfield, first Earl of Charlemont (1728-1799), was a patron of the arts, chairman of the committee of the Dilettanti Club and friend of Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith and Hogarth. Educated privately, he went on the Grand Tour at the age of eighteen in 1746, travelling to Turin (where he resided for a year, making the acquaintance of David Hume), Rome, the Greek Islands, Constantinople, the Levant, and Egypt, before returning to Ireland in 1754. During this time, he became a sponsor of Piranesi, whose Camera sepolcrali degli antichi romani le quali esistono dentro e fuori di Roma (ca 1750) was subsidized by and dedicated to Charlemont; Piranesi engraved a large number of additional plates, and--having secured a promise of further subventions from Charlemont to offset the significant financial outlay involved--added them to the work, publishing the four-volume set under the title Le Antichità romane in 1756. However, by this point Charlemont had returned to Ireland and, despite repeated requests from Piranesi, did not provide the artist with the anticipated payment but only a sum of less than 200 scudi, a figure which Piranesi dismissed as offensively small (in contrast, the Pope had given 1,200 scudi without any expectation of a dedication). In frustration and anger, Piranesi removed the dedications to Charlemont present in the first states of the title-pages to the work, and scrupulously expunged all references to his erstwhile patron from the text. Piranesi published the Lettere di giustificazione the following year, which reprints two of the artist's letters to Charlemont together with a third to Father Peter Grant, who had attempted to intervene in the dispute and mediate between the two parties. The textual vindication of his position is complemented by the series of eight plates which demonstrate the disassociation of Charlemont's patronage from the work in a relentlessly methodical manner; they illustrate the original title-pages with their dedications to Charlemont, two versions of Charlemont's text for the dedication leaf, the first title with the dedicatory text erased, and, finally, the second state of the title-page with the revised dedication. As Wilton-Ely states, "the intellectual and social changes of the late 18th century affected the traditional relationship between patron and artist, and the Lettere are symptomatic of issues greater than a mere personal quarrel. Themes which transcend the tedious details of the affair include the nobility of artistic reputation and the imperishabl

Auction archive: Lot number 649
Auction:
Datum:
20 Jun 2013
Auction house:
Christie's
20 June 2013, New York, Rockefeller Center
Beschreibung:

PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778). Lettere di giustificazione scritte a Milord Charlemont e à di lui agenti di Roma ... intorno la dedica della sua opera delle Antichitá Rom[ane] fatta allo stesso signor ed ultimamente soppressa . Rome: [G.B. Piranesi], 1757.
PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778). Lettere di giustificazione scritte a Milord Charlemont e à di lui agenti di Roma ... intorno la dedica della sua opera delle Antichitá Rom[ane] fatta allo stesso signor ed ultimamente soppressa . Rome: [G.B. Piranesi], 1757. Small 2 o (254 x 188 mm). Etched dedication leaf [W.-E. 739] with medallion portrait with initials "J.C.," possibly those of James Caulfield [see below] pasted over original dedication; title-page [W.-E. 738, state one of two early states], and 8 plates, one double-page and folding [W.-E. 745 (early state)-752]. 4 head-pieces [W.-E. 740-743] and one tail-piece [W.-E. 744], by and after Piranesi. (Very light spotting on dedication and title leaves.) 18th-century English red half morocco, marbled boards (slightly rubbed). Provenance : inscription "Ex Dono Autoris J.C." on title: possibly James Caulfield, fourth Viscount and first Earl of Charlemont (1728-1799, to whom the Lettere are addressed; Sir Henry Fitz Herbert (bookplate); acquired from Bernard Quaritch, 1981. [ Bound at end :] Piranesi's two-leaf letter of retraction. 4 o , letterpress, double-column. [Rome: not before 15th March 1758 (date of the letter)]. FIRST EDITION, WITH THE TITLE AND FIRST PLATE IN EARLY STATES, OF PIRANESI'S RARE POLEMIC, which disowned Lord Charlemont's patronage and set out Piranesi's own view of the relationship between artist and patron. The Irish nobleman and politician James Caulfield, first Earl of Charlemont (1728-1799), was a patron of the arts, chairman of the committee of the Dilettanti Club and friend of Burke, Johnson, Reynolds, Goldsmith and Hogarth. Educated privately, he went on the Grand Tour at the age of eighteen in 1746, travelling to Turin (where he resided for a year, making the acquaintance of David Hume), Rome, the Greek Islands, Constantinople, the Levant, and Egypt, before returning to Ireland in 1754. During this time, he became a sponsor of Piranesi, whose Camera sepolcrali degli antichi romani le quali esistono dentro e fuori di Roma (ca 1750) was subsidized by and dedicated to Charlemont; Piranesi engraved a large number of additional plates, and--having secured a promise of further subventions from Charlemont to offset the significant financial outlay involved--added them to the work, publishing the four-volume set under the title Le Antichità romane in 1756. However, by this point Charlemont had returned to Ireland and, despite repeated requests from Piranesi, did not provide the artist with the anticipated payment but only a sum of less than 200 scudi, a figure which Piranesi dismissed as offensively small (in contrast, the Pope had given 1,200 scudi without any expectation of a dedication). In frustration and anger, Piranesi removed the dedications to Charlemont present in the first states of the title-pages to the work, and scrupulously expunged all references to his erstwhile patron from the text. Piranesi published the Lettere di giustificazione the following year, which reprints two of the artist's letters to Charlemont together with a third to Father Peter Grant, who had attempted to intervene in the dispute and mediate between the two parties. The textual vindication of his position is complemented by the series of eight plates which demonstrate the disassociation of Charlemont's patronage from the work in a relentlessly methodical manner; they illustrate the original title-pages with their dedications to Charlemont, two versions of Charlemont's text for the dedication leaf, the first title with the dedicatory text erased, and, finally, the second state of the title-page with the revised dedication. As Wilton-Ely states, "the intellectual and social changes of the late 18th century affected the traditional relationship between patron and artist, and the Lettere are symptomatic of issues greater than a mere personal quarrel. Themes which transcend the tedious details of the affair include the nobility of artistic reputation and the imperishabl

Auction archive: Lot number 649
Auction:
Datum:
20 Jun 2013
Auction house:
Christie's
20 June 2013, New York, Rockefeller Center
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