An ancient altar from Hadrian's villa, on a base carved in bas-relief from a carving in Villa Barberini. Etching by G.B. Piranesi, 1762.

[Rome] : [publisher not identified], [between 1768 and 1778]

1 print : etching ; image 41 x 31.4 cm

Altare antico di marmo ritrovato fra le macerie della Villa Adriana nel sito detto Pantanello. La sua gran conca è ovata, e sostenuta da due ippogriffi elegantemente lavorati, e corrispondenti al secolo felice delle arti al tempo d'Adriano. Questo monumento si vede nella raccolta delle antichità del cavalier Piranesi. Il basamento che regge quest'ara è stato disegnato da un monumento antico che si vede nella facciata del Palazzo Barberini verso il giardino. Al Signor Tommaso Barrett cavaliere inglese amatore e seguace delle belle arti in atto d'ossequio il cavalier Gio. Batt'a Piranesi D.D.D.

The dedicatee Thomas Barrett has apparently not been identified. He may have been one of the following: (1) Thomas Barrett-Lennard, 17th Baron Dacre (1717-1786), who was in Rome 1749-1751 (Ingamells, op. cit., pp. 53-54), and still alive but presumably back in England when Piranesi concluded this series of prints; or (2) Thomas Barrett (1743 or 1744-1803), described in Alumni Cantabrigienses as admitted as Fellow-Commoner aged 18 at Trinity College Cambridge, 7 March 1762; well known collector of pictures and curiosities; d. unmarried Jan 8, 1803, aged 59 at Lee; not in Ingamells, op. cit. as having visited Italy), or (3) Sir Thomas Barrett-Lennard, 1st Baronet (1761-1857), the son of Thomas Barrett-Lennard, 17th Baron Dacre: he was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, but there seems to be no evidence that he visited Italy (and he was aged only 16 when this series of etchings was concluded)

John Ingamells, A dictionary of British and Irish travellers in Italy, 1701-1800 compiled from the Brinsley Ford archive, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1997

Wellcome Collection 3025792i