Francesco Piranesi

Piranesi, Francesco. Le Antichita Romane. This plate: View of the interior of the Colosseum. Hind 134, 1st Paris edition, 1835. Original etching. Plate size: 19 1/2 x 28 1/4 i...

Francesco Piranesi (Italian, 1758-1810) Topographical Map of Pompeii Originally executed 1785, modern reprint (likely 20th Century) Engraving Framed: 4...

Francesco Piranesi was born in Rome, the eldest son of Giovanni Battista Piranesi and his wife, Angela Pasquini. He was educated in printmaking by his father, along with his older sister Laura (1755–1785), also a noted printmaker at the time of his untimely death. He both engraved his own works of art and assisted his father's work in 1775. He then began to study with other experts: engraving with Giovanni Volpato, landscape painting under the German Jacob Philipp Hackert and his brother Georg and architecture under Pierre-Adrien Pâris. Piranesi accompanied his father on two trips to the ancient Roman ruins of Paestum, Pompei and Ercolano, first in 1770 and then again in 1778. In this he was part of a group of engravers who collaborated with Benedetto Mori and the architect Augusto Rosa, considered the inventor of felloplastica, the art of building models of ancient monuments in cork. Giovanni Battista created a series of preparatory drawings on Paestum, which were completed by Francesco. Upon his father's death, shortly after the second voyage, Francesco acquired his father's publishing house and was responsible for printing most subsequent editions of his prints. Piranesi collaborated with French artist Louis Jean Desprez...

Original engraving by Francesco Piranesi from "Raccolta di Statue Antiche." Rome, 1780-1792.