plate 8 from Labruzzi’s ‘Via Appia Illustrata ab Urbe Roma ad Capuam’, the illustrated record of a journey undertaken with his patron, the young English antiquarian, Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) in the late autumn of 1789. The Italian artist and printmaker, Carlo Labruzzi (c.1765-1818), had been engaged to accompany Hoare as he sought to retrace the journey from Rome to Brindisi made along the Via Appia by Horace in 38 BC, exploring the classical ruins and contemporary archaeological excavations they would find along the way. However, bad weather and illness halted progress at Benevento, so the extensive work originally envisaged was curtailed to what is now a rare set of 24 plates. This one depicts the two figures, no doubt Labruzzi and Hoare, themselves, examining a derelict burial chamber by torchlight, with creepers from the Casali vineyard above extending their tendrils along the entrance wall on the right,
engraving on thick laid paper, 430 x 555 mm. (17 x 21 7/8 in), titled in English and Italian, slight damp-staining, surface dust and faint spotting, mostly marginal,