Piazza del Popolo

Piazza del Popolo is a beautiful etching and hand-colored gouache, finely engraved on copper and printed on laid paper. The work, which presents a remarkable quality of strokes and brilliant colors, is unsigned, but it is part of the 20 plates engraved in 1820 by the Swedish artist Carl Gustaf Hjalmar Mörner (or umo?rner) during his stay in Rome, certainly influenced by the style and manner of the coeval folkloric prints made by Bartolomeo Pinelli (cfr. Hermanin F., Una collezione di stampe e disegni dell’antico carnevale romano , Bollettino d’Arte, Rome, year I, January 1907, p. 28, cit.).

The title is engraved on plate on the lower center, and the print is numbered 5 on the lower right. The quality and the conditions of preservation of the print are very good, except for a barely visible stain on the higher margin of the paper sheet.

The Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous Roman piazzas, is represented during the famous Carnival . The processions, games, and horse races started from this piazza to end up in Piazza Venezia through Via del Corso. The work represents a genre scene with, in the background, the platforms from which people saw the event and, in the foreground, many characters in costumes joking around.

This print, besides being of high quality, engraved with draftsmanship and brilliant colors, is also a folkloric and fun image of the carefreeness of life in Rome during the famous Carnival.