Piranesi’s Paestum: Master Drawings Uncovered at Sir John Soane's Museum

Piranesi’s Paestum are among the most significant examples of European graphic art. The 15 highly resolved preparatory drawings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in Sir John Soane's Museum were produced for Piranesi's last great graphic project his Différentes vues de Pesto. Published posthumously 1778, they show views of the three great Doric temples in the former Greek colony of Paestum, located dramatically on a plateau not far from the coast of the Gulf of Salerno. Piranesi visited the site in 1777 and produced the 15 drawings that are in the Soane and two further drawings, one in the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and one in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.