With the help of his son, Francesco Piranesi (1758–1810), he created 21 plates, whicg were published posthumously in November 1778 in his book Différentes Vues de Pesto. In 1778 he returned to his home in Rome, to complete the drawings in the studio and to create the etchings. His dramatic etchings for the series Vedute di Roma (151 ‘Views of Rome’, created between 1747–78), amassed a huge fan following and brought a wealth of ‘grand tourists’, artists and scholars to his showrooms in Rome – in Palazzo Tomati, near the top of the Spanish Steps – where he sold restored antiquities too.Įtching was a lucrative business for Piranesi and failing health did not stop him from venturing to Paestum in 1777, to create preparatory drawings for etchings of three Greek temples in the former colony of Poseidonia (or Paestum), founded by Greek settlers in 600BC. Venetian-born Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78), artist, architect, stage and interior designer, living in Rome from 1740, was much in demand for his topographical drawings, and architectural capriccio, fantasy drawings. This extract from John Wilton-Ely’s book Piranesi, Paestum and Soane sums up the foundation of the outstanding exhibition ‘Master Drawings Uncovered: Piranesi’s Paestum’ at Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (until in London, opening in Berlin on 1 June), where the majority of Piranesi’s remarkable Paestum drawings are on display. Towards the end of 1777 Piranesi made an arduous expedition to the remote malarial marshes in the Bay of Salerno …to record three majestic Greek Doric temples at Paestum.
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