La Galerie Nouvelle de la Bibliothèque Vaticane à Rome avec le Corniches Ornées des Vases Etrusiens

Original Copper Plate.  Oblong folio.  293 x 439 mm., [11 ½ x 17 ¼ inches].  Numbered 34 at the top right of the plate.  Some very light oxidation to the plate, otherwise in very good, usable condition.

Rare survival of this copperplate engraved by Nicolas Jean Baptiste and published by another notable engraver Jacques Chereau.  Prints from this plate also carry de Poilly's imprint with the address Rue de St. Jacques a l'Esperance. 

Nicolas Jean-Baptiste de Poilly (1707-1780) was from a family of notable painters and engravers, stretching back to his grandfather Nicolas de Poilly the Elder who worked during the third quarter of the 17th century.  Nicolas's father Jean-Baptiste (d. 1727) and his brother Nicolas de Poilly the Younger were highly regarded painters in their youth but both, for different reasons, applied their skills to the trade of engraving.  This family of engravers specialized in architecture, landscapes, antiquities and ornaments and worked on many large projects, consisting of hundreds of plates, include Histoire de l'Abbaye Royale di Saint-Denys (1706),  Histoire de Ordres monastiques religieux et militaires, (1714-1719), Recueil de Estampes dans le cabinet Roy, (1729-1742) to name a few.   

While doing research on de Poilly I came across a note by Giacomo Casanova on his use of the Vatican Library that I thought appropriate to this description.

"[The librarian] heard me complain about the embarrassment a man of letters found himself in when he went to work in the libraries of Rome, as for example at the Minerva, and even more so at the Vatican [...]. One of the librarians introduced me for the first time to all the subordinates, and since that day, not only have I been responsible for going to the library every day and at all hours, but for carrying home all the books that I might need, doing nothing other than writing the title of the book that I took on a sheet of paper that I left on the table where I was writing. They brought me candles when they thought I couldn't see very clearly, and they went so far as to give me the key to a little door through which I could go to the library at all hours, very often. without being seen." 

Henri Cohen & Seymour De Ricci.  Guide de l'Amateur des Livres a Gravures du XVIII Siècle, p.1235 for index of works.   Arthur Hind, A History of Engraving & Etching, p. 465 for an index of their works.  Giacomo Casanova, Histoire de ma vie, III, p. 856-857)  (1145)