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GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
Mogliano 1720 - 1778 Rome
Carceri XVI (1st State), about 1749
Prisons No.XVI (The Pier with Chains)
Etching: 410 x 557 mm.; 16 1/8 x 21 7/8 inches
Watermark: Fleur-de-Lys in a Single Circle (Hind 1)
Reference: Focillon 39; Hind 16; Robison 42-I/VI
Notes:
1. A superb impression of the very rare 1st State (of six states) of this major etching. In the 2nd State (1761), there are major changes in this composition: e.g. four monumental columns and a tablet are added in the middle of the image. Aside from the traces of a reinforced printer’s fold on the verso, in fine condition.
2. In 1950, Aldous Huxley described Piranesi’s Prisons (from Themes and Variations, “Variations on the Prison”):
The most disquietingly obvious fact about all these dungeons is the perfect pointlessness which reigns throughout. Their architecture is colossal and magnificent. One is made to feel that the genius of great artists and the labor of innumerable slaves have gone into the creation of these monuments, every detail of which is completely without a purpose. Yes, without a purpose, for the staircases lead nowhere, the vaults support nothing but their own weight and enclose vast spaces that are never truly rooms, but only ante-rooms, vestibules, outhouses. And this magnificence of Cyclopean stone is everywhere made squalid by wooden ladders, by flimsy gangways and catwalks. And the squalor is for squalor’s sake, since all these rickety roads through space are manifestly without destination. Below them, on the floor, stand great machines incapable of doing anything in particular, and from the arches overhead hang ropes that carry nothing except a sickening suggestion of torture. Some of the “Prisons” are lighted only by narrow windows. Others are half open to the sky, with hints of yet other vaults and walls in the distance. But even where the enclosure is more or less complete, Piranesi always contrives to give the impression that this colossal pointlessness goes on indefinitely, and is co-extensive with the universe. Engaged in no recognizable activity, paying no attention to one another, a few small, faceless figures haunt the shadows. Their insignificant presence merely emphasizes the fact that there is nobody at home.