PIAZZETTA, Giovanni Battista. Études De Peinture Dessinées Par Jean Baptiste Piazzetta gravées par Marc Pitteri. Venezia, Avec Privilège du Senat, 1764

Oblong Folio Album, 305x435 mm; full calf binding with 7 ribs and gilt tiles and ornaments on spine; engraved illustrated frontispiece by Marco Alvise Pitteri, titlepage, 2 pages of dedication at the Count De Woronzow with engraved vignette with illustrated initials, coats of arms of the owner and final vignette, 2 pages of preface with illustrated initial of the printer Giovan Battista Albrizzi, 34 pages of text with illustrated initial and endpieces with portrait of Piazzetta; 48 numbered plates, engraved by Bartolozzi and Pitteri; 5 final numbered plates, engraved vertically instead horizontally, one of Giuliano Giampiccoli and the others probably of Pitteri. Heraldic bookplate of Lord James Butler glued insidecover. Prints on laid paper with watermarks with “device with moon” and “crowned device with sword with signature SOTO IMPERIAL”. Nice specimen with wide margins.

Splendid and elegant work published at the expense of Giovanni Battista Albrizzi, great Venetian publisher of the eighteenth century. This specimen is the definitive edition in French of 1764. All the plates are in fact in the final state following the numbering and the censorship on male nudes. The album, commissioned by Pitteri and Albrizzi as a tribute to the great artist and late friend, consists of 48 plates of design studies in double suites, alternately engraved by Bartolozzi in a simple outline, and Pitteri in chiaroscuro with accurate shading. The work was reprinted several times during the eighteenth century: the first print is recognizable by the absence of any words, except for the progressive roman number. Marco Pitteri, 1702- 1786, was perhaps the best Venetian engraver; in 1742 began a fruitful collaboration with Piazzetta, of which he became the interpreter par excellence. Beautiful impressions printed on laid paper with watermarks “device with moon” and “crowned device with sword with signature SOTO IMPERIAL”. This specimen also contains the five final plates which, although numbered progressively, are not part of the work and have been added: they are etched vertically instead of horizontally as the plates of the suite and depict typical gallant and bucolic subjects of the rococo style of Venetian vedutism of the time. Cicognara 345, Graesse V p.279; Succi p.396. The lot is offered with a valid license.