Italy - Rome // Pincio Walk // Villa Borghese; Giovanni Battista Balzar (Roma

The print offers a splendid and clear historical and urban testimony of Rome from the Leonine era and the Restoration. The engraver depicts the Piazza dell'Obelisco al Pincio seven years after its final erection (completed in 1822 by order of Pope Pius VII). The composition is strict and balanced: at the center rises the pink granite monolith resting on Valadier's pedestal, topped by the heraldic star of the Chigi/Pius VII. The scene is animated by fine figures in Romantic-era dress (pasticciotti): a draftsman seated on the left intent on portraying the panorama, a couple of elegant passersby on the right, and workers in the background near blocks of stone, symbolizing the finishing works of the famous Roman promenade. The botanical rendering of the surrounding trees and the crisp atmosphere of the sky demonstrate Balzar's high technical level in handling chiaroscuro and grays. Giovanni Battista Balzar (Rome, c. 1777 – 1831), an important Roman engraver active from the late 18th century to the early decades of the 19th century. The sheet presents itself in extraordinary preservation for the period. The paper has retained its original freshness, with very slight and physiological undulations due to time, entirely normal for handmade papers from the early 1800s.

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