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ALDE

57 - PIRANESI (Giovanni Battista). Carceri d'invenzione.
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Estimate €20,000 - €30,000
Sale commission
Description
PIRANESI (Giovanni Battista). Carceri d'invenzione. [Paris, Firmin Didot, c. 1807–1835]. 16 etchings on laid paper (approx. 410 x 558 mm), in sheets (approx. 648 x 498 mm), in a cloth-covered slipcase. Complete set of Piranesi’s (1720–1778) Imaginary Prisons, a Parisian edition produced by Firmin Didot between 1807 and 1835. This legendary series of architectural views of subterranean, imaginary and fantastical prisons, etched by Piranesi, was originally published by Bouchard in Rome in 1749–1750. Titled *Invenzioni capric. di carceri*, it originally comprised fourteen plates. In 1761, Piranesi extensively reworked certain copper plates, enhancing their contrasts, refining the architectural details and enriching their fantastical resonance. He added two plates (nos. II and V) to the series and gave it the title by which it is known today, *Carceri d’invenzione*. The extreme modernity of the Imaginary Prisons is now well established: nightmarish in nature, the series of etchings depicts ‘a geometry of confinement, an autonomous underground architecture, a rambling—bordering on dream and delirium, yet lucid—of eternal oppression’, in the words of Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski, opening up a dimension of the imagination that only came into its own during the 20th century. Moreover, if *The Prisons* hold such fascination for the modern public, it is not merely because ‘this masterpiece of architectural counterpoint foreshadows certain concepts of abstract art’, as Marguerite Yourcenar suggests in *Piranesi’s Black Brain*; ‘it is above all because this artificial world—and yet sinisterly real, claustrophobic, and yet megalomaniacal—reminds us of the one in which modern humanity is increasingly imprisoning itself, and whose mortal dangers we are beginning to recognise’. Contents: I. Frontispiece. – II. The Man on the Rack. – III. The Round Tower. – IV. The Great Gallery. – V. The Lion Reliefs. – VI. The Smoking Furnace. – VII. The Drawbridge. – VIII. The Staircase of Trophies. – IX. The Giant Wheel. – X. The Prisoners’ Platform. – XI. The Arch Adorned with Shells. – XII. The Easel. – XIII. The Well. – XIV. The Gothic Arch. – XV. The Pillar with the Streetlamp. – XVI. The Pillar with the Chains. Prints with generous margins on laid paper. Plates numbered I to XVI (except plates nos. II, V and XI) and signed in the copper ‘Piranesi F’. Plate no. II bears the engraved inscription at the bottom: ‘Presso l’autore a Strada Felice… al prezzo di paoli venti’. Eight plates bear the Firmin Didot watermark, dated by Robison to the mid-1830s (Hind, fol. 8; Wilton-Ely, fol. 93): plates I, III, IV, VI, IX, X, XIV and XVI. Some foxing, mainly in the margins, on a few plates; wear on the reverse of plate V. Focillon, 24–39 – Hind, 1–16 – Robison, 29–42 – Wilton-Ely, 26–41.
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About the sale Antique books – Alchemy & the occult sciences
Auction location
Auction time 11/04/2026 at 2:00 PM
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ALDE
See original version (French)
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