Giovanni Battista Piranesi

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Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778
Design for a Tabernacle. Verso: fragment of a design for two chairs
ca. 1764-1769
Pen and brown ink, over black chalk, on paper, irregularly trimmed; verso: pen and brown ink.
5 5/16 x 3 3/4 inches (135 x 95 mm)
Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.
1966.11:114

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Notes: 

The chair at left on the verso is a sketch for the etched design at the bottom of pl. 66 of "Diverse maniere d'adornare i cammini," 1769, f. 926. The tabernacle on the recto of this sheet may be by a workshop assistant rather than Piranesi himself.

Inscription: 

Numbered at lower right, in graphite, "55".
Watermark: Six-pointed star inside circle, surmounted by a cross, with letter "F" below circle, centered on chain line.

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.
Watermark: 
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. 114, repr.

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