Piazza Navona

Etching and engraving, ca. 1670/80, unsigned and without printing details.

The work, probably of the French school, is without any editorial indications. It belongs to an anonymous series of medium-format perspective views of Italian cities, unknown to all bibliographic repertories on views of various Italian cities. The series probably never had a final issue and was not published in the form of a collection; for this reason we have found no record of it in library repertories.

All the views contain real elements-objective for iconographic identification-associated with others of pure fantasy. In the style of the French landscape painters active in Italy in the 17th century, in the style of the paintings and engravings of Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorraine.

The views of Rome in the collection are clearly derived from those of the Flemish Lievin Cruyl, published in Prospectus loco rum Urbis Romae Insignis, printed in Rome in 1666 by Giovan Battista De Rossi. This detail leads us to date this series to the later years, between about 1670 and 1680. The remaining views are absolutely original and so far from all previous models.

The present example is printed on paper datable to the 19th century. One of the plates in our possession, depicting an unidentified country landscape, bears an only partially legible signature that, therefore, could not be identified.

Very rare.