Drawings

There is no doubt that the sixteenth and seventeenth century drawings exhibited in the Municipal Prints Room have been collected in a somewhat disorganized fashion, but the collection does comprise some remarkable works, including those ascribed by Caravaggio to Polidoro and a cartoon by Domenichino portraying Salomon and Betsabea, a work preliminary to the frescoes in the church of San Silvestro at the Quirinal. On the contrary, the group of eighteenth and nineteenth century drawings is much larger and more homogeneous. The collection of the eighteenth century architectural designs is one of the most valuable and interesting groups of works exhibited in the Room. Besides the designs by such outstanding architects, as Filippo Juvarra, Nicola Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli, the collection also consists of works by less known artists, related to the minor architecture of the century and essentially bourgeois in nature.As far as the neoclassical period is concerned, the Room exhibits also a few works by Giuseppe Camporese, Raffaele Stern and Giuseppe Valadier, such as architectural designs of the period of the French domination, free hand and studio drawings, including goldsmith Luigi Valadier's valuable sketches for table decorations. Referring to the nineteenth century, both Bartolomeo Pinelli's graphical production (consisting of drawings preliminary to his engravings on Roman customs and mythological subjects) and works by his son -Achille Pinelli- are well documented. A fine collection of watercolour paintings by the latter, portraying the churches of Rome, is exhibited in the Room.A very interesting and sizable collection of works is that left to the Museum as a donation in 1971 by Countess Laetitia Pecci Blunt (1885-1971). It covers the period between the sixteenth and the twentieth century. The collection comprises works collected by the countess herself from the thirties on. Some of these she purchased shrewdly while others she commissioned from young artists of her time. The aim of the collection was to save for posterity the memory of the places and customs bound to disappear due to the great urban transformations of the city, thus the collection was called "The Rome of the Past".