Subject
Section of a tomb on the Via Appia Antica, with accompanying description, from the series “Le Antichità Romane”.
Accession number RP-P-OB-39.452
Engraving
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Mogliano Veneto 1720 – 1778 Rome
ca. 1756 – ca. 1757
39.7 cm x 52.0 cm
Inscription
Bottom centre (in a box): Scale in Roman Palms. Bottom: Section of the preceding Sepulchre. A Travertines, which clothe the Walls of the Room, which still exist to this day, perhaps because it was not an easy thing to remove them from there because of the Pins, B, which by binding one piece with the other, make them more stable, and strongly united to the whole Work. Observing at one side, and at the other side of the Vault, three courses of Travertines, C, which besides being wedge-shaped, and bound by Pins, are still interlocked with each other by means of some projections, cut as wedges; as they are shown here below in perspective in Figure D. E Windows. F Travertines on the exterior of the Structure. G Current floor of the Room filled with ruins. The whole Room was adorned with very fine Stuccoes, some minute remnants of them still being seen on the Walls. H Plan of the Countryside. Below right: Piranesi Archit. dis. et inc.
Placement
Rijksmuseum
Credits
Rijksmuseum
References
H. Focillon, Giovanni Battista Piranesi; a cura di Maurizio Calvesi e Augusta Monferini; traduzione di Giuseppe Guglielmi, Bologna, 1967, p. 305.
J. Wilton-Ely, Giovanni Battista Piranesi: the complete etchings, 2 voll., San Francisco, Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, 1994, p. 446.