Les Plus Beaux Monuments de Rome Ancienne. By Jean Barbault. viii, 90 pp., illustrated with an engraved title, dedication vignettes, plus 8 textual vignettes and 73 full-page etched plates, many with two images per page. Folio, 520 x 385 mm., bound in contemporary French calf. Rome: Bouchard & Gravier, 1761.
First edition of these artistic renderings of the ruins of ancient Rome by the French Academy painter Jean Barbault. After studying in Paris, he settled in Rome and became a colleague, collaborator and then rival to Piranesi. He worked with Piranesi on Le Antichità Romane and on the Varie Vedute di Roma. Barbault executed four views for the latter work that are included in this volume.
This is Barbault's first and most important work. It can be viewed as another version of Piranesi's Antichità. The painterly quality of the Barbault etchings, with the fine delineations of sunlight and shadow along the surface of the ruins, and the felicitous inclusion of human figures, grazing animals and local flora, create a sense of pastoral harmony that endows these etchings with an artistic merit of primary significance.
A fine unsophisticated copy with just the slightest wear to the binding, some minor stains and the final leaf, the table of contents, slightly browned.
PROVENANCE: Jacques Laget.
Berlin Katalog 2712. Millard, Italian 14. Rossetti 751.
