Lot 38
38
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Mogliano Veneto 1720-1778 Venice)
These lots have been imported from outside the EU … Read more PROPERTY OF THE ESTATE OF GEORGE AND PATRICIA H. LABALME
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Mogliano Veneto 1720-1778 Venice)

Study of a seated man

Details
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Mogliano Veneto 1720-1778 Venice)
Study of a seated man
red chalk
3 3/8 x 3 3/8 in. (8.5 x 8.6 cm.)
Provenance
Dr. Bruno Forel, New York.
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, London, 7 July 1998, lot 145.
with Margot Gordon, New York; where acquired by George Labalme in 2000.
Special notice
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Lot Essay

Piranesi’s exceptional talent at capturing instant tranches de vie is expressed in this study depicting a seated man wearing a hat. A record of the artist’s sensibility for real-life subjects, the drawing can be listed among Piranesi’s earliest separate figure drawings, datable to the late 1740s. A similar study in red chalk was sold at Christie’s, New York, 31 January 2013, lot 77, and another is in The Morgan Library & Museum, New York (inv. 1983.38). In general, Piranesi did not transpose images from his numerous figure drawings directly into his etchings, but this one might have served that purpose, since it appears incised with a stylus along the contours.

We are grateful to Andrew Robison for his assistance in cataloguing this drawing and for confirming the attribution.

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