Aqueduct Panorama, Arches and Water Channels after Fabretti, 1722

This is an original antique copper engraving, uncolored, a double page folding plate from Montfaucon's Antiquity Explained, and Represented in Sculptures. A wide landscape runs across the top: the sun on the horizon, two long lines of arched aqueduct to left and right, a river with small boats, towns with houses and a church spire, a rider on a track and a straight road leading into the distance. The lower half sets out structures in elevation and section: a large arch with a pediment and two portrait roundels, a smaller lettered arch, a third arch seen in perspective, a coin showing a horseman over an arch, several aqueduct arches and piers, a basin with channels, and plans and sections of water conduits.

Nearly every figure is captioned "Fabreti". Two arches carry inscriptions. The large one is lettered at the top COS. SEP. DESIGNAT. OCTAVO, and the smaller one reads IMP. CAESAR. DIVI. IVLI. F. AVGVSTVS PONTIFEX. MAXIMVS. COS. XII TRIBVNIC. POTESTAT. XIX. IMP. XIIII RIVOS. AQVARVM. OMNIVM. REFECIT. The coin carries the letters S C. The figures are numbered 1 to 15, with 12 engraved three times. The corners read "Vol. IV." at foot left, "Plate 43." at foot right and "Pag. 127" at top right.

Bernard de Montfaucon (1655 to 1741) was a French Benedictine monk and scholar. His L'Antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures appeared in Paris in 1719, and this English translation by David Humphreys was printed in London by J. Tonson and J. Watts in 1722. Volume four ends with carriages, roads, bridges, aqueducts and shipping, and this sheet belongs to the roads and aqueducts. As elsewhere in the work, the caption beside each figure names the source it was copied from.

The broad landscape makes a decorative piece for a wide wall.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.