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Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Sketches of Head and Shoulders of Bearded Man
ca. 1760-1770
Pen and brown ink, over traces of red chalk, on paper trimmed to an oval and later cut on three sides.
6 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches (163 x 140 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:122
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Notes:
These quick figures sketches by Piranesi--probably just studies of someone in his workshop--would seem to date to the mid-1760s. For a similar study, see the "Half-Length of a Bearded Man" at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv. 2000-1. The drawing is on the verso of a fragment from a page of accounts in pen and brown ink.
Inscription:
Numbered at right, in graphite, "10".
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. 122, repr.
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