Delle antichità di Ercolano
An 18th-century Italian folio of engraved plates published in Naples in 1757 by the Royal Press, compiled by Ottavio Antonio Baiardi and Pasquale Carcani to record antiquities excavated at Herculaneum for scholars and collectors. The plates show Roman marble busts on plain pedestals, rendered in fine engraved line with soft grey shading against blank backgrounds. A designer could take from them the clean, restrained classical sculpture forms, the engraved line technique and the precise plinth-and-bust compositions.
