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From the copperplate engraving by Piranesi

THE ARCH OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, IN THE FORUM, ROME

Half-tone plate engraved by G. M. Lewis

PIRANESI, ETCHER AND

ARCHITECT

BY FREDERICK KEPPEL

WITH PICTURES FROM ORIGINAL COPPERPLATE ENGRAVINGS BY PIRANESI, LENT BY THE WRITER

I

CANNOT better begin this article on Piranesi than by citing a remark which was made to me about him by Alphonse Legros, the French artist who for more than twenty years was professor of art, under the Slade endowment, at University College, London. We all know that these dignified professors sometimes "say more than their prayers," but when Professor Legros uttered a pronouncement on some artist it was sure to be something worth remembering. Legros is a remarkable man, and although he has never been able to speak English, he has had more and better influence on British art than any other man of his generation except, perhaps, Whistler. What Legros said of Piranesi's etchings was this: "If only these etchings were as small in size as the etchings of Rembrandt, they would now be selling for prices about as high."

Legros was right; your thorough-paced collector abhors a big print. Some of Rembrandt's most famous etchings measure no more than about five by eight inches, while an average Piranesi measures, without the margins, about twentysix by eighteen inches. The collector hoards his precious little prints in his portfolios; but for framing as decorations for the walls of a home, such an authority as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer declares that she knows no pictures in black-andwhite which are so effective as Piranesi's.

Within recent years fine original impressions of certain etchings by Rembrandt have sold at public auction for prices which would have astounded the old Dutch master, who died in the year 1669. His "Christ Healing the Sick"

has brought $12,300; his portrait of Jan Six, Burgomaster of Amsterdam, $14,200; the very diminutive "Landscape with a Tower," $9400; and the portrait of the goldsmith Lutma, $4600. In comparison, the present values of Piranesi's prints seem trifling, although, it is true, these prices have increased more than twenty-fold within the last twenty years.

As in the case of every other master in art, Piranesi's style and method were absolute innovations: nothing that resembles them had ever been thought of or attempted before he originated them. But, on the other hand, he had a host of imitators, although none of these had the least claim to rank as his rival. The best among them were his own son Francesco, who was born at Rome in 1756, and Luigi Rossini, who was born in 1790. Rossini made the preposterous mistake of etching the same buildings which Piranesi had already done in a manner immeasurably superior. Of this wide difference between an original man and his imitator, Dr. Samuel Johnson once made a very pungent remark. Some one had been saying of a contemporary that his poems resembled those of John Dryden, and were quite as good. To this Dr. Johnson retorted, "Sir, your friend may make Dryden's report, but he does not carry his bullet."

Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi was the son of a stone-mason. He was born in Venice in 1720, and died at Rome in 1778. Before leaving Venice, he studied drawing and architecture, and to the end of his life he signed some of his finest plates "Piranesi, architect." He also did some important work in architec

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SCENE IN A ROMAN PRISON-ONE OF PIRANESI'S SERIES OF IMAGINARY PRISONS

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