Pierre Francois Hugues "d'Hancarville" (editor)
Clener (engraver)
View of the Excavation of a Sepulcher in the Vicinity of Nola, Which Serves as a Demonstration of How Vases Are Found
from Antiquites Etrusques, Greques et Romanes. Tirees du Cabinet de M. Hamilton, enoye extraordinaire de S.M. britannique a la cour de Naples
Francois Morelli, Naples: c. 1766-77 (1st Ed.)
Giovacchino Cambiagi, Florence: 1801-08 (2nd Ed.)
Etching in sepia ink
20.5 x 13 inches
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.
Grand Tour 18th Century Archaeology
Hamilton Vases Print
Hamilton Vases Print
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This is one of the preliminary illustrations in the Hamilton Vases set of prints, demonstrating how the vases depicted within were found. These eighteenth-century tourists are observing the excavation of an ancient tomb in Italy in the vicinity of Nola, a town about 25 km east of Naples. The tomb has been pried open, and some of its contents removed, with one gentleman holding up one of the vases to admire it. A skeleton and more vessels can be glimpsed inside the sepulcher. Eighteenth-century Europeans loved to participate in theatrical spectacles, and during this era, staged archaeological "discoveries" were sometimes performed for well-to-do visitors to give them a taste of the drama of making a find. This print is in the collection of the The Getty Research Institute and appeared in their exhibition "Italy on the Grand Tour."
Inscribed in Italian and French with the print's title (translated above): Veduta dello scavo d'un sepolcro nelle vicinanze di Nola, che serve a dimostrare come si trovano li Vasi./Vue du caceau d'un sepulcre pres de Nola pour faire connoitre comment on trouve les vases.
Sir William Hamilton (1730-1806) was a prominent collector and enthusiast of the arts and sciences at the height of the Age of Enlightenment. Born to an aristocratic Scottish family, he assembled one of the world's finest collections of Greek and Roman antiquities as British Envoy Extraordinaire to the two Sicilies from 1764-1800. Most of the antiquities he collected came from excavations in Southern Italy and Sicily, and he later sold most of them to the British Museum. In 1766, he watched the excavation of the Trebbia Tomb, and decided to produce accurate drawings of the vases found there. The glories of his vase collection were recorded in color-plate folios, which served as souvenirs for the great libraries of Grand Tour travelers and patrons, and provided inspiration to decorative art designers in England, such as Josiah Wedgwood. View a portrait of Hamilton by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
References:
June Burgess, "Sir William Hamilton: a Scottish Neapolitan," originally published on http://www.irc.na.cnr.it/CI/26symp/hamilton.html
"Italy on the Grand Tour: Witness Ceremonies and Theater." J. Paul Getty Trust. 2001. http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/grand_tour/t7_spectacle.html (14 June 2002).