CINERARY URN

Previously considered to have been carved in antiquity, the present cinerary urn was more likely to have been made in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s workshop in the 1770s, which produced ‘ancient’ sculpture and vases that were sold to foreign visitors to Rome. Based on a Roman funerary urn the present vase incorporates a combination of classical motifs and an elegant classical shape that would have attracted European Grand Tourists who hoped to acquire souvenirs from ancient Rome at a time when it was becoming difficult to source them. The present vase is not engraved in Piranesi’s Vasi, Candelabri… (see J. Wilton-Ely, Piranesi: The Complete Etchings, vol. II, San Francisco, 1994, pls. 914-954) although in its form and details it closely matches several vases that Piranesi is known to have designed, and is close in technique to Piranesi creations such as the Colossal Candelabra in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.