Ex-Chatsworth House, Monumental, 9 Foot Long, 1765 View of Rome, Etching by Vasi

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Ex-Chatsworth House, Monumental, 9 Foot Long, 1765 View of Rome, Etching by Vasi

About the Item

Prospetto dell’Alma Citta di Roma … Giuseppe Vasi, 1765. Etching on 12 joined sheets of laid paper. Mounted within is original 18th century 9' long black painted and gilt wood frame. In 1740, a young man walked into the workshop of Giuseppe Vasi (1710-1782), then the most eminent etcher in Rome. The self-possessed 20 year old, not a stranger to the 30 year old artist, sought work in the master’s studio, and was intent on learning something of his secrets. The internship did not go well, the younger artist was frustrated by Vasi’s withholding certain critical information, especially the best methods for handling acid during the etching process. This disappointment, soon enough, turned to rage, and in a studio likely awash in sharp, pointed objects knives, etching needles, etc. The apprentice stabbed his teacher, the motive described as murder. Fortunately (for him and us), Vasi survived, and his hot-headed charge Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) seems to have gone unpunished. For the next four decades, a robust rivalry built between the two men, one decisively influencing the work of both, a competition without which Vasi’s defining work, the Prospetto dell’Alma Citta di Roma, might never have been achieved. In the quarter century following that attack, Vasi’s artistic prominence with etchings of ancient Roman monuments increasingly waned, while Piranesi’s star burned ever more brightly, the younger man’s very much more dramatic, Romantic, highly realized views, often of identical subjects (historians suggest Piranesi made off with several of Vasi’s copper printing plates) rendering his teacher’s images timid, even naïve. In his (partial) eclipse, Vasi sought something much more magnificent than he’d previously produced, an 18th century printed blockbuster. Interestingly, he found the answer not in any novel methodology or shocking re-interpretation, but, simply enough, within the history of Roman printmaking. In 1593, Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) published a vast view of the Eternal City – Pianta di Roma, 105 x 240 cm, printed across a dozen joined sheets. More a two-dimensional map than three-dimensional architectural perspective, it nonetheless pictured the entire city, at a size and scale encouraging examination of every street and landmark. In 1676, Giovanni Falda (1643-1678) followed suit with his own immense Nuova Pianta et Alzata della Citta di Roma, 163.5 x161 cm., also on twelve joined sheets. In 1748, Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756), an acquaintance of Vasi’s, published his monumental Pianta Grande di Roma, covering 176 x 208 cm., printed, almost of course, on twelve sheets. This especially handsome image combines an extensive plan view of the city, bordered by highly-rendered, fully-dimensional perspectives of Rome. At the top, two putti appear to be unrolling the drawing. Vasi’s 1765 Prospetto, 102.5 x 261.5 cm, on 12 joined sheets, is the concluding, surpassing accomplishment of this line of epochal Roman printmaking, a thoroughgoing architectural appreciation the ancient modern city. Unlike the earlier efforts, Vasi’s view appears laid out as an immense perspective drawing, picturing the city as it then appeared from the garden of the Villa Corsini atop the hill known as the Janiculum. Buildings and other landmarks in the foreground are larger than those to the back. Unlike the earlier pianti (maps), streets are not visible, though the gaps between blocks and rows of buildings, aided by the very extensive index to the bottom of the drawings, allows locating the larger thoroughfares. In fact, as historians have noted, in order to make the Prospetto comprehensible, Vasi invented several adjustments to the then-existing rules of perspective, including vertically stretching the lower portion of the image. The Prospetto offered here once formed part of the furnishings of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, seat of the Dukes of Devonshire and, since 1549, home to the House of Cavendish. The etching appears in two house inventories. An 1892 list shows it adorning the Audit Rooms; while an 1859 tally has it in the House Steward’s office. It seems likely that this etching was acquired by William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, in the course of his Grand Tour in the late 1760s. Still in the handsome black painted and gilt wood frame it occupied at Chatsworth, this Prospetto from the 1765 edition is an especially richly-provenances example of Vasi’s masterpiece.

Creator:
Giuseppe Vasi (Artist)
Dimensions:
Height: 40 in (101.6 cm)Width: 103 in (261.62 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
Style:
Grand Tour (Of the Period)
Materials and Techniques:
Paper,Wood,Etched,Gilt,Painted
Place of Origin:
Italy
Period:
Mid-18th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1765
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use. Minor losses. Minor structural damages. Minor fading. Repairs and conservation, including 2 small infilled areas. This print was purchased from Chatsworth House, where it was probably brought by the 5th Duke of Cavendish who made his Grand Tour in the 1760's. We removed its coating of varnish.
Seller Location:
Lafayette, CA
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU114322707552