This year marks the 300th birthday of the printmaker, architect, and designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), and in celebration, exhibitions were organized in Venice, London, Berlin, and elsewhere. The Morgan holds the largest and most important collection of the artist's drawings, and the exhibition Sublime Ideas: Drawings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi was scheduled to have opened on May 29. Although the exhibition has been postponed, John Marciari, head of the Morgan's Department of Drawings and the curator of the exhibition, will give a preview, looking at drawings ranging across the artist's career and including early architectural caprices, studies for prints, measured design drawings, sketches for a range of decorative objects, a variety of figural drawings, and views of Rome and Pompeii.
Held Wednesday, June 24, 2020.