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Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Sketches of a Chimneypiece and Table
Pen and brown ink on paper with rectangle cut out at upper left; extraneous traces of red and black chalk; verso: black chalk and stylus indentations.
11 1/16 x 13 3/16 inches (281 x 336 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:60
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Notes:
This drawing is related to Piranesi's Diverse Maniere but neither the chimneypiece nor table appear in the plates of that work. A drawing of a table in the collection of Sven Gahlen, London, is said by William Rieder (1973) to have been the upper left portion of the Morgan sheet.
Inscription:
Inscribed at center, in pen and brown ink, "Camilli marmi ò cigni // fronde o teste"; numbered at upper right, in graphite, "88".
Provenance:
Mrs. J.P. Morgan, New York; by descent to her sons Junius S. Morgan, Princeton and Paris (no mark, see Lugt 1536) and Henry S. Morgan, New York.
Associated names:
Morgan, Jane Norton, 1868-1925, former owner.
Morgan, Junius Spencer, 1892-1960, former owner.
Morgan, Henry S. (Henry Sturgis), 1900-1982, former owner.
Bibliography:
Stampfle, Felice. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Dover, 1978, no. 60, repr.
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