Allegory with the statue of Minerva - proof of the first state

A VERY RARE PROOF OF THE FIRST STATE

Etching, engraving and drypoint, circa 1745/48, signed at lower right, in the right sheet.

Example in the first state of seven described by Hind before the addition of the address of the publishers Bouchard and Gravier and the retouches in the background. The example in question, however, is to be considered as a very rare printing proof on two separate sheets, dividing the work in half and making two compositions for their own sake. 

The Allegory with the statue of Minerva will constitute the second title page to the Vedute di Roma. The work is dated by scholars to the period 1745/48, therefore it was realized before the first frontispiece to the work, which is dated on the plate 1748.

For the realization of the two compositions, obtained by printing the entire plate, he most likely used a "mask", thus managing to print only half of the plate.  The period in which all this took place suggests that it was something intentional and not a simple test. The subject - the caprice - and the measurements indicate that with these proofs the artist continued the work he had begun in 1743, with the first plates of the Prima parte di Architetture e Prospettive

According to Hind, a proof of this work was included in the Opere Varie - the new title given by Piranesi to the Prima parte di Architetture e Prospettive from 1750 onwards - in the King's Library, confirming that Piranesi used the plate to make two new works to continue the Prima parte di Architetture e Prospettive.

Prima parte di Architetture e Prospettive is a publication by the young Piranesi, who had just settled in Rome. The result is a work that is not entirely unified, characterized by the notable stylistic difference between the plates, but of great charm and that lets you guess and predict future artistic developments. The work continues a tradition of a well-established model, which included the whim and the view, the scenography and the treatise on architecture, but later, analyzing the artist's biography, it will be understood to be above all the outburst of a crisis as an architect and of an inner journey lived with intensity. In short, the result of the clash between a mind tied to Venetian culture, heir to the poetry of ruins evoked by Marco Ricci and taken up by Bellotto and Canaletto, and the new architectural culture that was forming in the young Piranesi. Prima parte di Architetture e Prospettive and the subsequent architectural fantasies that continue it constitute a decisive step towards the goal he set himself in the preface to the work: to ensure that architectural caprice would lead to free architecture from the chains of the material and social world, to make it a truly liberal art. The work was an immediate success with the public.

As mentioned, the first edition of the work dates back to 1743, and was dedicated to Nicola Giobbe, a great impresario at the service of the Camera Apostolica and protector of the young Venetian architect. Later it was included in a wider discourse that included the four Capricci and published in the Opere Varie di Architettura Prospettive Grotteschi Antichità Inventate ed incise da Giambattista Piranesi Architetto Veneziano printed by Giovanni Bouchard in 1750.

Magnificent proof, printed in black ink on two separate sheets, on contemporary laid paper with watermark "circle and lily with letters CB" (Robison 2 in the right-hand sheet only), with wide margins, traces of the usual central horizontal fold, overall, in excellent condition.

Work of great rarity.  Dimensions: 322x495 mm the left sheet and 330x495 mm the right sheet.

Bibliografia

cfr. A. M. Hind, Giovanni Battista Piranesi. A critical study with a list of his published works and detailed catalogues of the Prisons and Views of Rome (1908): p. 38, n. 2, I/VII; A. Robison, Piranesi early architectural engravings (1986); H. Focillon, Giovan Battista Piranesi 1720-1778 (1918): n. 786; J. Wilton-Ely, Giovan Battista Piranesi, The complete etchings (1994): n. 135; A. Bettagno, Piranesi Incisioni-Rami-Legature-Architetture (1978); M. Praz, G.B. Piranesi, Magnificenze di Roma (1961);  AA.VV, Piranèse et les Francais (1978).