Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Sketches of Head and Shoulders of Bearded Man

Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1720-1778

Sketches of Head and Shoulders of Bearded Man

ca. 1760-1770
6 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches (163 x 140 mm)
Pen and brown ink, over traces of red chalk, on paper trimmed to an oval and later cut on three sides.
1966.11:122

Bequest of Junius S. Morgan and gift of Henry S. Morgan.

Notes
These quick figures sketches by Piranesi--probably just studies of someone in his workshop--would seem to date to the mid-1760s. For a similar study, see the "Half-Length of a Bearded Man" at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv. 2000-1. The drawing is on the verso of a fragment from a page of accounts in pen and brown ink.
Inscriptions/Markings
Numbered at right, in graphite, "10".
Associated names
Morgan, Jane Norton, 1868-1925, former owner.
Morgan, Junius Spencer, 1892-1960, former owner.
Morgan, Henry S. (Henry Sturgis), 1900-1982, former owner.
Bibliography
Stampfle, Felice. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Dover, 1978, no. 122, repr.
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department