Marieschi, Magnificentiores selectioresque urbis Venetiarum prospectus, Venice, [after 1743], green boards

MARIESCHI, MICHELE

Magnificentiores selectioresque urbis Venetiarum prospectus. Venice: the author, 1741 [after 1743]

Oblong folio (394 x 530mm.), etched title incorporating a portrait of the artist after Angelo Trevisani, 21 etched plates by Marieschi, all but the last numbered in contemporary manuscript, the leaves with central drying folds as normal, eighteenth-century green half vellum over paper-covered boards, binding slightly rubbed

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE (BEFORE PLATE NUMBERS) OF THESE STRIKING VIEWS OF VENICE. Marieschi (1710–1744) was a native Venetian, who, as well as being an engraver, was also a stage-designer and scene-painter. His views of Venice are original compositions and, unlike the earlier suite by Canaletto which perhaps inspired him, not based on existing paintings.

LITERATURE:

Berlin Kat. 2697; Cicognara 4040; Dario Succi, Le incisioni di Michele Marieschi (Padua, 1981)