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Veduta della Piazza di S. Marco, Venice A Rediscovered Drawing by Luca Carlevarijs Piraneseum rediscovered a remarkable view of the Piazza San Marco, drawn by Canaletto’s teacher, Luca Carlevarijs.
In the 90’s and early 00’s, Christie’s lead the way in making the market in Grand Tour souvenirs. For collectors, their annual sales were much anticipated and closely followed. Thus, it is a particularly resonant satisfaction to offer, with Christie’s, a group of especially grand, Grand Tour architectural models. The Catalog for their October 23 sale in […]
Though focused on architectural mementos, occasionally our attention wanders. We are only human. Several years ago, at a sale in Italy, we came across a very beautiful inlaid marble tabletop, apparently from the latter part of the sixteenth century. After the usual rigmarole involving export licenses, customs clearances, etc., it found its way here. Lucia […]
Casanova: The Seduction of Europe, at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor through May 28, 2018, is a remarkable installation conceived as a romp through 18th C. Venice, Paris, and London in the footsteps of Giacomo Casanova (Venice 1725 – 1798 Dux, Bohemia). A spectacular assemblage of paintings by Canaletto, Bernardo Belloto, Francesco Guardi, Francois Boucher, […]
Two years ago, Curbed, the multi-city Amercian blog featuring “all things home” posted A Pair of Architects Create a Home for their Grand Collection, an extensively-photographed, well-written description of our assemblage of 17th – 19th century architectural souvenirs. Late last year, Curbed was again in touch, proposing a short video about the collection. A day […]
A year ago, in an out of the way German sale, we became intrigued with an old, darkened, architectural canvas. Peering through the cloudy, yellowed, cigar smoke-scented varnish, we thought we made out several elements characteristic of the later 17th century Roman ruins painter Giovanni Ghisolfi (Milan 1623 – 1683) (fig. 1). Telltale signs, in […]
All Roads Lead to Rome 17th – 19th Century Architectural Souvenirs from the Collection of Piraneseum SFO Museum, International Terminal January – August, 2017 Among the abiding pleasures of our collection are the opportunities to share it with friends and acquaintances, as well as those we don’t know, but who may be intrigued. Over the […]
The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, has just added Piraneseum’s specimen marble and micromosaic table top to it’s celebrated glass collection. This highly unusual, 22-3/4” diameter Roman micromosaic and specimen marble tabletop was made in Rome for the 1876 U. S. Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Surrounding a central micromosaic medallion bordered in green malachite […]
Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) Artists Sketching at Hadrian’s Villa brown ink, wash, and body color on laid paper 24 x 35 cm., c. 1746 One of the most remarkable objects shown for the first time in Piraneseum’s recent exhibit, All Roads Lead to Rome (January – August 2017, San Francisco International Terminal), was this drawing. Three of the […]
Giovanni Ghisolfi (Milan 1623 – 1683) Capriccio with Figures among Roman Ruins oil on canvas, 65 x 48.5 cm. Historian Giancarlo Sestieri has just published the definitive work on the genre of paintings known as Architectural Capricci, or architectural ruins paintings. Piraneseum’s Capriccio with Figures Among Roman Ruins, by Giovanni Ghisolfi, was selected as the cover image […]