Room 4 of 6
Antiquity & ruins
Rome, Greece and Egypt as the antiquarians recorded them: Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained, the triumphal arches and temples of Rome, the pyramids and temples of the Nile, and the reliefs of the Louvre.
137 prints
1803 · 62.6 × 46.7 cm
1721 · 45 × 45 cm
1721 · 24.8 × 42.5 cm
1705 · 57 × 41.5 cm
1721 · 50.2 × 42.4 cm
1721 · 50.2 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 50 × 42 cm
1721 · 50.2 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 25.5 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 62 × 46.8 cm
1721 · 25.3 × 42.2 cm
1803 · 46.7 × 62.6 cm
1803 · 62.6 × 46.7 cm
1721 · 25.5 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 25.5 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 25.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 25.5 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 25.5 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 50 × 42 cm
1721 · 50 × 42.1 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 50 × 42 cm
1721 · 25.5 × 42.3 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1755 · 28.5 × 44.6 cm
1803 · 46.7 × 62.6 cm
1803 · 62.6 × 46.7 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 50 × 42 cm
1721 · 50 × 42 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1721 · 25.8 × 42.4 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1755 · 44.6 × 29 cm
1721 · 24.3 × 42.2 cm
1803 · 46.7 × 62.6 cm
1721 · 25 × 41.2 cm
1721 · 25.8 × 42.4 cm
1802 · 41.5 × 58.5 cm
1721 · 25.8 × 42.4 cm
1755 · 44.6 × 29 cm
1802 · 58.5 × 41.5 cm
1721 · 25.8 × 42.4 cm
1803 · 62.6 × 46.7 cm
1873 · 49.8 × 36.2 cm
About antiquity & ruins
From the 1500s to the 1800s every educated traveller learned architecture from the ancients, and the antiquarians published what survived. Bernard de Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained (1719, English edition 1721) gathered temples, reliefs, statues, altars and lamps into hundreds of copperplates; Norden, Pococke and Denon measured the temples of the Nile; Piranesi's successors drew the arches and ruins of Rome.
The room also holds the classical sculpture of the Louvre as Baltard engraved it in 1803, and the ruined castles and abbeys of the Romantic era.
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Questions about antiquity & ruins
What is Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained?
L'Antiquite expliquee et representee en figures by the Benedictine scholar Bernard de Montfaucon, Paris 1719, translated into English in 1721: many folio volumes and supplements, with more than a thousand plates of classical antiquities. Its large plates of temples and reliefs are favourite architectural prints.
Are the Egyptian prints from Napoleon's Description de l'Egypte?
Most here are earlier: Frederik Norden's Travels in Egypt and Nubia (1755) and Richard Pococke's Description of the East (1743 to 1745 and later editions), with some plates from Denon's Voyage of 1802.