ROME - CATACOMBES - PETIT Savinien (1815 † 1878).... Lot 103

ROME - CATACOMBES - PETIT Savinien (1815 † 1878). Reunion of 19 original drawings on vellum, preparatory to Louis PERRET's large lithographed album, "Catacombs of Rome" (Paris, Gide and J. Baudry Éditeurs, 1851, 6 volumes). Plates executed notably for Vol. I (pl. 30, 31, 45, 52), vol. II (pl. 61), vol. III (pl. 10, 26, 41, 43, 46), vol. V (pl. 7, 50). The set consists of 5 watercolours and 14 pencil drawings (some with stump). Noteworthy subject: "Chapel with two rooms and light fixtures" (watercolour and Indian ink on pencil line, on tracing paper applied to vellum). Average size of leaves: 58 x 45 cm. Condition B/C (Dirt, marginal freckles, accidents, traces of humidity). Set of 19 p. "For lack of having been able to compete for the Prix de Rome, Savinien Petit owes the opportunity to discover the Eternal City to an order from the State. In 1845, a commission composed of Ampère, Ingres, Mérimée and Vitet asked him to survey the catacombs to illustrate, in chromolithography, Louis Perret's work "Catacombs of Rome", published in six volumes in 1851. Petit and Perret were thus in line with the first works begun by Antonio Bosio in the 16th century, continued in the 19th century by Séroux d'Agincourt, or Padre Marchi (...), and preceded by a few years the publication of G.B. de Rossi (1822-1894), "Roma sotterranea cristiana" (1864-1877). » (Collective, "Savinien Petit: Le sentiment de la ligne, 1818-1878", exhibition catalogue, Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, 16 June - 20 Sept. 2004, Paris, Artlys Editions, 2004, p.30).