Architectural Decoration from the Domus Aureus
Rome: Ludovico Mirri, 1776-1778. Item #05027
Emperor Nero's Golden House
A Magnificent Originally Hand-Colored Plate from the Domus Aurea
From Mirri's Rare Luxury Colored Issue of the Vestigia delle Terme di Tito
CARLONI, Marco (1742–1796), engraver, after SMUGLEWICZ, Franciszek (1745–1807) and BRENNA, Vincenzo (1747–1818?). Architectural Decoration from the Domus Aurea. Plate 9 from Vestigia delle terme di Tito e loro interne pitture. Rome: Presso Ludovico Mirri, 1776–1778.
Original etching and engraving with contemporary hand coloring in watercolor and gouache, from the rare luxury colored issue.
Plate mark 22 7/8 x 12 1/4 inches (581 x 311 mm.). Beautifully matted, framed and glazed in a gilt frame; overall framed size 31 1/2 x 21 inches (800 x 533 mm.). A fine example, the original colors remarkably fresh and brilliant.
A superb originally hand-colored plate from one of the most spectacular archaeological publications of eighteenth-century Rome, recording the extraordinary painted decoration discovered in the ruins of Nero's legendary Golden House.
The composition reproduces an elaborate semicircular architectural decoration from the Domus Aurea, the enormous palace complex constructed for the Emperor Nero following the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64.
Against a dramatic black and golden ground rises a fantastic symmetrical architectural structure of columns, pediments and painted panels. Classical figures occupy niches and elevated platforms; small mythological scenes appear within framed panels; delicate scrolling vegetation ornaments the walls; and two robed male figures stand within the lower architectural recesses.
The whole is enclosed beneath an enormous semicircular arch, its coffered interior picked out in brilliant red, gold, white and black. The exceptionally rich hand coloring transforms Carloni's engraved architecture into a remarkably vivid evocation of the ancient painted interior.
The plate comes from Vestigia delle terme di Tito e loro interne pitture, published in Rome by the antiquarian and art dealer Ludovico Mirri from 1776. Mirri had obtained permission in 1774 to excavate the ancient rooms beneath the Esquiline Hill, then traditionally identified with the Baths of Titus. He financed the excavations and commissioned artists to record the surviving decorations, principally the Polish painter Franciszek Smuglewicz and the architect and designer Vincenzo Brenna; their drawings were subsequently translated into etchings and engravings by Marco Carloni. Contemporary and institutional catalogues confirm the collaboration of Smuglewicz, Brenna and Carloni.
The remains recorded were principally those of Nero's Domus Aurea, or “Golden House.” After Nero's death in A.D. 68, much of the vast complex was buried or incorporated into subsequent imperial building projects. When its subterranean chambers were rediscovered during the Renaissance, artists descended into the grotte to study their surviving Roman wall paintings. Their fantastic combinations of architecture, foliage, animals, mythological figures and ornamental devices became known as grottesche, or grotesques, and exercised a profound influence upon Renaissance and later European decorative art.
By the eighteenth century many of these ancient paintings were deteriorating rapidly, giving Mirri's undertaking an importance far beyond its considerable decorative appeal. Smuglewicz and Brenna recorded the interiors at a time when substantially more of their painted decoration remained visible than survives today.
Of particular importance, the present plate belongs to Mirri's rare luxury hand-colored issue. The Vestigia was produced in two forms: a conventional monochrome version and a special version printed in outline and intended to be finished by hand in watercolor and gouache. Recent scholarship records Mirri's projected production of only thirty hand-colored sets and notes that subscribers were asked to reserve the colored version in advance. It has been suggested that these outline impressions may have been taken before additional shading was added to the plates for the monochrome edition.
The colored version was therefore conceived from the outset as a distinct luxury production rather than as ordinary impressions subsequently embellished. A recent archaeological study likewise describes the second version as illuminated with watercolor and gouache over washed outlines.
The complete Vestigia was a monumental production comprising a dedication, title and fifty-nine numbered plates, several with folding extensions; institutional catalogues describe the complete atlas as 61 etching-and-engraving sheets when the preliminary plates are included.
A magnificent survival from one of the great eighteenth-century publications devoted to the rediscovery of ancient Rome—an exceptionally decorative originally hand-colored engraving preserving the extraordinary painted interiors of Nero's Golden House.
Price: $2,250.00