Piranesi (Giovanni Battista)

from the Rome edition of ‘Vedute di Roma’, showing the modified and partially reconstructed ruins of the terminal distribution ‘castellum’ of the water supplied to central Rome from the Aqua Giulia, sited in what is now the Parco Vittorio Emanuale, near the Villa Palombara, identified in the key below the title panel, which also identifies the where on the remaining structure the later trophies were mounted, the enormous buttresses added later to support the height of the building, and the small houses that had been constructed below, demonstrating Piranesi’s interest in the complete intermingling of classical, baroque and contemporary Roman life as washerwomen hang their laundry out to dry in the foreground,

etching with engraving, on thick laid paper with a fleur-de-lys in a double circle watermark, 3rd state with the artist’s address and price, and additional shading, 400 x 605 mm., a central vertical fold, faint marginal spotting and minor damp-staining, slight surface dirt towards the sheet edges, [H.34 III; F.822; WE.169],