Giovanni Battista Piranesi

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Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Two Designs for a Sedan Chair and Coach
ca. 1767-1769
Red chalk, pen and brown ink, on paper.
11 3/4 x 5 3/16 inches (298 x 132 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:96

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Notes: 

The pen and ink drawing is a study for plate 61 (f. 921), and the red chalk drawing for plate 62 (f. 922) of Piranesi's "Diverse maniere d'adornare i cammini," 1769. It is drawn on the back of a fragment of plate 5 (f. 862) from the same publication.
In the same mat as 1966.11:97 and 1966.11:98.
In addition to designs for interior decoration, the Diverse maniere includes designs for coaches and sedan chairs. These plates must have been among the last works added to the publication, for the Morgan's preparatory drawings for them are on discarded proofs of the furniture design plates. Whereas Piranesi had adapted his elaborate Venetian gondola design for the coach in his first view of Piazza San Pietro from the 1740s, his later view of the Vatican from circa 1771-73 instead includes a simpler coach akin to that seen here and in two related drawings (inv. 1966.11:97 and 1966.11:98).

Inscription: 

Numbered at lower right, in graphite, "62 (?)".

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. 96, repr.

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