Bignamini, Ilaria / Hornsby, Clare.

Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome. Ilaria Bignamini and Clare Hornsby with Additional Research by Irma Della Giovampaola and Jonathan Yarker.

Two Volumes (complete set). New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2010. Quarto (22 cm wide x 27.5 cm high). Volume I: XXIV, 408 pages with illustrations throughout / Volume II: 214 pages. Original Hardcover with illustrated dustjackets in the original slipcase. Unusually Excellent, as new condition with only minor signs of wear. [Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art: Volumes 1 and 2].

Volume I contains:

Part One:

A Catalogue of Sites (with Note on Method and Calendar of Excavations)

Part Two:

Dealers and Other Characters

British Conquerors of the Marbles – 1. Gavin Hamilton as Archaeologist
British Conquerors of the Marbles – 2. Thomas Jenkins as Connoiseur
Note on Method

Bibliography: Catalogue of Sites
Bibliography: Dealers and other Characters
Photography Credits
Index to Volumes 1 and 2

This important and long-awaited book offers the first overview of all British-led excavation sites in and around Rome in the Golden Age of the Grand Tour in the eighteenth century. Based on work carried out by the late Ilaria Bignamini, the authors have undertaken the monumental task of tracing sculptures and other works of art that are currently in public collections around the world from their original find sites via the dealers and entrepreneurs to the private collectors in Britain. In the first of two extensively illustrated volumes, approximately fifty sites, each located by maps, are analysed in historical and topographical detail, supported by fifty newly written and researched biographies of the major names in the Anglo-Italian world of dealing and collecting. Essays by Bignamini and Hornsby introduce the field of study and elucidate the complex bureaucracy of the relevant departments of the Papal courts. The second volume of the books is a collection of hundreds of letters from the dealers and excavators abroad to collectors in England, offering a rich source of information about all aspects of the art market at the time. The book is an invaluable resource for scholars working in a rapidly expanding area where European art and cultural history meets archaeology(Publisher’s Info)


Volume II contains the “Note on Method” and the:

″large number of letters from various correspondnets that relate to the excavation and dealing of marbles by the British in Rome in the eighteenth century, ordered chronologically. For the most part they are letters to Charles Townley…”

• Keywords: 18th Century – Rare · 18th century Italian Travel · Archaeology · Archaeology – Rare · Archäologen · Archäologie · Art · Art – Rare · Catalogue Four – International Art · Excavations (Archaeology) · Excavations in the 18th century · Italian History · Italian History – Rare · Italy · Rome
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 31976AB

EUR 475,--