ROME CATACOMBES PETIT Savinien (1815 1878). Reunion of 19 or - Lot 91

ROME CATACOMBES PETIT Savinien (1815 1878). Reunion of 19 original drawings on vellum, preparatory to the large lithographed album by Louis PERRET, "Catacombs of Rome" (Paris, Gide et J. Baudry Éditeurs, 1851, 6 volumes). Plates executed in particular 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 includes 5 watercolors and 14 pencil drawings (some with stump). Notable subject: "Chapelle à deux salles avec luminaires" (watercolor and India ink on pencil line, on tracing applied to vellum). Average sheet size: 58 x 45 cm. Condition B/C (soiling, marginal foxing, accidents, traces of humidity). Set of 19 pp. "For lack of being able to enter the competition for the Prix de Rome, Savinien Petit owed the opportunity to discover the Eternal City to a commission from the State. In 1845, a commission composed of Ampère, Ingres, Mérimée and Vitet solicited him for the survey of the catacombs intended to illustrate, in chromolithography, the work of Louis Perret, " Catacombs of Rome ", published in six volumes in 1851. Petit and Perret thus follow in the footsteps of the first works begun by Antonio Bosio in the sixteenth century, continued in the nineteenth century by Séroux d'Agincourt, or Padre Marchi (...), and precede 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 catalog, Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, June 16-Sept. 20, 2004, Paris, Artlys Editions, 2004, p.30.)