Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7

Giuseppe Vasi
Piazza Navona allagata solito farsi nelle Feste di Agosto

1752

About the Item

Piazza Navona allagata solito farsi nelle Feste di Agosto Etching, 1752 Signed in the plate lower right (see photo) From: Della Magnificenze di Roma Antica e Moderna ( The Magnificense of Ancient and Modern Rome) , (1747-1761) Volume II, The Main Squares and Obelisks, columns and other ornaments, 1752, Plate No. 26 Della Magnificenze di Roma Antica e Moderna_ (1747-61), a collection of 238 plates that was published in ten volumes. Vasi recorded all types of architecture and organized these images of contemporary Rome by subject, with each volume representing a different category of architecture. This comprehensive project provides one of the most complete views of eighteenth-century Rome Condition: Excellent Image/Plate size: 8 .25 x 12.63 inches Sheet size: 11 x 15 7/8 inches Vasi was Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s teacher. Piranesi (1720-1778) entered Vasi’s studio as an apprentice at age 20 c. 1740. Piranesi left Vasi’s employment after stabbing Vasi over the perception that Vasi was withholding secrets of the etching process. Giuseppe Vasi was an Italian engraver and painter born and trained in Sicily. He received a classical education in his hometown of Corleone and trained as a printmaker in nearby Palermo, perhaps under the tutelage of the etchers Antonino Bova and Francesco Cichè. He moved to Rome in 1736, already an established printmaker, and spent most of his career documenting the urban landscape of the city in engravings. Through his patron, the politically and culturally influential Cardinal Troiano Acquaviva d’Aragona, Vasi met other artists working in Rome, such as Sebastiano Conca, Ferdinando Fuga, and Luigi Vanvitelli. He was also influenced by his predecessors, including Giovanni Paolo Panini, Giovanni Battista Falda and Gaspar Vanvitelli, and by the tradition of _vedutismo_ that these figures pioneered. During the early 1740s Vasi also served as mentor to the young Giovanni Battista Piranesi, to whom he taught the technique of single-cut engraving. Vasi’s output can be organized into two categories, the first being his engravings of ephemeral structures, such as those used in the festival of the Chinea, while the second and more well-known and widely disseminated were his views of sites throughout Rome. Vasi’s first book, _Vedute del Tevere_ (1741-43), was a collection of these views. This book prefigured his later and most well known work, _Della Magnificenze di Roma Antica e Moderna_ (1747-61), a collection of 238 plates that was published in ten volumes. Vasi recorded all types of architecture and organized these images of contemporary Rome by subject, with each volume representing a different category of architecture. This comprehensive project provides one of the most complete views of eighteenth-century Rome. It acts as a pictorial supplement to Giovanni Battista Nolli’s famous map of Rome, _Pianta Grande_, completed in 1748. Nolli even supplied Vasi with measurements to aid in the drafting of his views of the city. In 1765 Vasi created a large, panoramic view of Rome for King Charles III of Spain, the _Prospetto dell’alma città di Roma_. The panorama, which measures 102.5 x 261.5 cm, consists of 437 engraved plates and is accompanied by several texts written by Vasi in the form of an _Itinerario_. Over the course of his forty-six year career, Vasi established himself as one of the principle engravers of Rome. In addition to his own great works, Vasi collaborated with other printmakers such as Philothèe-Francois Duflos and Louis-Joesph Le Lorrain, and through his workshop contributed to such important books as Niccola Zabaglia’s 1743 _Castelli e Ponti_ and Giuseppe Bianchini’s _Evangeliario Quadruplex_ (1749). Through his extensive and didactic body of work, Vasi illuminated the urban and architectural landscape of eighteenth-century Rome, and through his relationships with patrons, publishers, and other artists he left his mark on the print culture of the city.
  • Creator:
    Giuseppe Vasi (1710 - 1782, Italian)
  • Creation Year:
    1752
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 8.25 in (20.96 cm)Width: 12.63 in (32.09 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
    1750-1759
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Fairlawn, OH
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: FA126211stDibs: LU14015548052

More From This Seller

View All
Scene II, Le Nozze Degli Dei
By Stefano Della Bella
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Scene II, Le Nozze Degli Dei Etching, 1637 Signed in the plate lower left The scene depicts the initial moment when Diana is revealed, surrounded by her nymphs, celebrating a success...
Category

1630s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

View of the Ancient Structure built by Tarquinius Superbus called the Bel Lido
By Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Located in Fairlawn, OH
View of the Ancient Structure built by Tarquinius Superbus called the Bel Lido, and like others built by Marcus Agrippa in the time of Augustus when he cleaned all the sewers leading...
Category

1750s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

Piazza Colona
By Giuseppe Vasi
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Piazza Colona Etching, 1752 From: Della Magnificenze di Roma Antica e Moderna ( The Magnificense of Ancient and Modern Rome) , (1747-1761) Volume II, The Main Squares and Obelisks, ...
Category

1750s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

Rhenen
By Wenceslaus Hollar
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Rhenen Etching, 1652-1677 Signed in the plate: W. Hollar fect Lettered in design at upper left: ' Rhenen'; below borderline at left: ' I. Peeters' inv.'; below border near center: ' ...
Category

1650s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

XXXIII Fig. I Avanzo del Tempio di Castore e Polluce
By Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Located in Fairlawn, OH
XXXIII Fig. I Avanzo del Tempio di Castore e Polluce .View of the Remains of the Peristyle of the House of Nero, Etching, 1756 Signed in the plate (see photo) From: Le Antichità Roma...
Category

1750s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

Veduta dell'esterno della gran Basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano
By Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Veduta dell'esterno della gran Basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano (View of the Exterior of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican) Etching, 1748 From the first printing of the "Vedute di Roma" An early impression with strong contrasts Before the price and the addition of numbers in the later states. A view of Michelangelo's done from behind the Piazza, redesigned in 1547 Condition: Excellent Plate size: 15 3/4 x 24 3/4 inches Reference: Robison 5 a/g Hind 5 i/VII Focillon 54.789 Designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, St. Peter's is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and the largest church in the world. While it is neither the mother church of the Catholic Church nor the cathedral of the Diocese of Rome (these equivalent titles being held by the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome), St. Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic shrines...
Category

1740s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

You May Also Like

Ancient Roman Temple Architecture: An 18th Century Framed Etching by Piranesi
By Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Located in Alamo, CA
This is an 18th century etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi entitled "Veduta del Tempio detto della Tosse su la Via Tiburtina, un miglio vicino a Tivoli" (View of the so-called Tem...
Category

1760s Old Masters Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

The Basilica of Constantine
By Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Located in Chicago, IL
A very fine impression of the 3rd State, still with the address and price which were eliminated in the following 4th state. The presence of the address and price confirms that this ...
Category

18th Century and Earlier Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

Piranesi Etching of Hadrian's Ancient Roman Aqueduct and Baths, "Aquae Virginis"
By Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Located in Alamo, CA
This is a framed Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) etching entitled "Orthographia utriusque lateris arcuum ductus Aquae Virginis a specu principe ad Hadriani thermas, effossorum...
Category

Mid-18th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

The Basilica of St. Paul in Rome, Early 19th Century Etching by Luigi Rossini
By Luigi Rossini
Located in Alamo, CA
"Rovina della gran Basilica di S. Paolo fueri le mura accaduta" (View of the Ruins of the Great Triumphal Arch of S. Paolo Fuori le Mura) from "Le Antichita Romane" (Ancient Rome), published in Rome in 1823. It depicts the destruction of the Basilica of St. Paul after the fire of 1823. People stand in the road and on the right observing the damage amid debris, which includes many fragments of columns. The etching is presented in a silver-color wood frame with an off-white double mat with a black inner mat. There are a few small spots, but it is otherwise in very good condition. See item # LU117324669722 for another Rossini etching...
Category

1820s Old Masters Figurative Prints

Materials

Etching

Shere Mill Pond
By Sir Francis Seymour Haden, R.A.
Located in Missouri, MO
Shere Mill Pond, No. II (large plate). 1860. Etching and drypoint. Schneiderman 37.v/ix. 7 x 13 1/8 (sheet 10 3/4 x 16 3/8). This state is prior to publication in Études à l'Eau-Forte. Illustrated: Keppel The Golden Age of Engraving; Print Collector's Quarterly 1 (1911): 18; : Guichard, British Etchers, 1850-1940. A rich, brilliant proof with drypoint burr printed on white laid paper. Signed in pencil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shere Mill Pond, No. II was one of the most highly praised landscape prints of the etching revival. An impression was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1861 under Haden’s pseudonym, H. Dean. Francis Seymour Haden used this anagram of his own name early in his career as an artist, in order to retain his anonymity and preserve his professional reputation as a surgeon. Biography: Sir Francis Seymour Haden (16 September 1818 - 1 June 1910), was an English surgeon, best known as an etcher. He was born in London, his father, Charles Thomas Haden, being a well-known doctor and lover of music. He was educated at Derby School, Christ's Hospital, and University College, London, and also studied at the Sorbonne, Paris, where he took his degree in 1840. He was admitted as a member of the College of Surgeons in London in 1842. In 1843-1844, with his friends Duval, Le Cannes and Colonel Guibout, he travelled in Italy and made his first sketches from nature. Haden attended no art school and had no art teachers, but between 1845 and 1848 he studied portfolios of prints belonging to a second-hand dealer named Love, who had a shop in Bunhill Row, the old Quaker quarter of London. Arranging the prints in chronological order, he studied the works of the great original engravers, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden and Rembrandt. These studies, besides influencing his original work, led to his important monograph on the etched work of Rembrandt. By lecture and book, and with the aid of the memorable exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1877, he tried to give a true reflection of Rembrandt's work, giving a nobler idea of the master's mind by taking away from the list of his works many dull and unseemly plates that had long been included in the lists. His reasons were founded upon the results of a study of the master's works in chronological order, and are clearly expressed in his monograph, The Etched Work of Rembrandt critically reconsidered, privately printed in 1877, and in The Etched Work of Rembrandt True and False (1895). Haden's printmaking was invigorated by his much younger brother-in-law, James Whistler, at the Haden home in Sloane Street in 1855. A press was installed there and for a while Haden and Whistler collaborated on a series of etchings of the Thames. The relationship and project did not last. Haden followed the art of original etching with such vigour that he became not only the foremost British exponent of that art but brought about its revival in England. His strenuous efforts and perseverance, aided by the secretarial ability of Sir WR Drake, resulted in the foundation of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers. As president he ruled the society with a strong hand from its first beginnings in 1880. Notwithstanding his study of the old masters of his art, Haden's own plates were very individual, and are particularly noticeable for a fine original treatment of landscape subjects, free and open in line, clear and well divided in mass, and full of a noble and dignified style of his own. Even when working from a picture his personality dominates the plate, as for example in the large plate he etched after J.M.W. Turner's "Calais Pier," which is a classical example of what interpretative work can do in black and white. Of his original plates, more than 250 in number, one of the most notable was the large "Breaking up of the Agamemnon." An early plate, rare and most beautiful, is "Thames Fisherman". "Mytton Hall" is broad in treatment, and a fine rendering of a shady avenue of yew trees leading to an old manor-house in sunlight. "Sub Tegmine" was etched in Greenwich Park in 1859; and "Early Morning--Richmond", full of the poetry and freshness of the hour, was done, according to Haden, actually at sunrise. One of the rarest and most beautiful of his plates is "A By-Road in Tipperary"; "Combe Bottom" is another; and "Shere Mill Pond" (both the small study and the larger plate), "Sunset in Ireland," "Penton Hook," "Grim Spain" and "Evening Fishing, Longparish," are also notable examples of his genius. A catalogue of his works was begun by Sir William Drake and completed by Harrington in 1880. During later years Haden began to practise the sister art...
Category

Late 19th Century Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

The Anglers
By Adriaen van Ostade
Located in New York, NY
Adriaen Van Ostade (1610-1685) etching The Anglers, circa 1647, Godefry 26, Bartsch 26. Very good condition, with small (1/2 inch) margins, on cream laid paper, archival mounting. 4 ...
Category

1640s Old Masters Landscape Prints

Materials

Etching

Recently Viewed

View All