Outline
copper
engraved
plates of classical antiquities, from Antichita di Ercolano ( 1744
to 17920 ) by Georg Christoph Kilian,1709-1781
Georg
Christoph
Kilian,1709-1781 followed an apprenticeship with his father
with the traditional years of travel, visiting Nuremberg and
Hungary and working for a period in Vienna, where he studied the
art of the Old Masters. He returned to Augsburg and established
himself there, enjoying a high reputation in the literary and
artistic circles of his time.
He
worked both as a talented
artist and as an historian, art collector and biographer of other
artists. Apart from his renowned natural history collection, Kilian
had a well-chosen art library and above all a comprehensive
graphics collection, comprising engravings, woodcarvings and
drawings.
He
collected in particular the
works of his own family. He himself also engraved portraits of his
ancestors and family for the collection. The latter, bound in six
volumes, now forms an important part of the Augsburg Staats- &
Stadtbibliothek, to which he bequeathed it, along with the majority
of his collection of 16000 engravings & prints in
1781.
His
cartographic works included
the Supplement to the Atlas Curieux [1738]; Kleiner Atlas [1757],
Kriegs Atlas [1758], Theat. Guerre Allemagne - 61 maps [1760],
America Septentrionalis [1760]
Le
Antichita di Ercolano (The
Antiquities of Heculaneum) was a collection of images of
archeological finds from the excavations at the Roman city of
Herculaneum. It was published over a 40 year period from 1744 to
1792 as the excavations continued. Many different artists and
archeologists of the day worked on it. The Roman cities of Pompeii
and Herculaneum were burried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on
the morning of 25 August, 79 AD. It was not until 1709 that the
city of Herculaneum was discovered when a peasant digging a well on
his property was astonished to uncover large slabs of inscribed
marble.
Measurements:.
. most
plate-mark: 15 3/4" x 11" . . . sheet: 19 1/2" x 14
1/4"
