Piranesi the salesman
This is an example of a very rare single printed sheet detailing view prints and books for sale at his studio workshop. Piranesi first produced this in 1761 when he began to market his work himself instead of via other publishers. Some other examples are dedicated to particular friends and supporters, their names written below the “spear” at the bottom of the central area.
The print is an amalgam of superimposed images with fictive brickwork at the back, the title appears as an inscription on a marble plaque, fragments of architectural decoration and other antiquities appear in the foreground and a view that he did not publish, of the piazza S. Pietro is one of several layered views just visible “behind” the list. It presents a tour de force of Piranesi’s artistic imagination in print form. There are some manuscript additions to the printed lists of Vedute sheets and illustrated books for sale - probably added by an assistant - and others are printed to look like slips of parchment pinned on the paper surface.
Other signs of the transitional state of this print are that the number of plates and the price are left blank for the volume Dell’Emissario del Lago Albano and the price of the De Romanorum magnificentia et architectura volume has been erased on the sheet. The print can be dated to 1762, based on the comparison with others of the total of 127 that are known to survive.
Catalogo delle Opere date finora alla luce da Gio. Battista Piranesi, inserted as last page in De Romanorum magnificentia et architectura
BSR Library collection shelfmark: XL.614.P.1 – last page
