The Catacombs, Rome

At the end of the 1950s Piper was commissioned to produce ten keynote designs which would feature in Bertrand Russell's richly illustrated volume, The Wisdom of the West (London, MacDonald, 1959), and the current work may well have been produced as part of that series (perhaps to illustrate Early Christianity, for which an alternative work was used) but not chosen for the final publication. The work is therefore likely to date from 1958-59. The Arthur Jeffress Gallery, London, showed a series of paintings and watercolours of Rome by John Piper from 1-25 May 1962. These were based on sketches which Piper had made on a special visit to the city a few months beforehand. But the differences in style and colouring and the medium used (including marbled paper) in the making of the present lot appear to confirm that it originated some years before Piper's early 1960s Rome project.

We are very grateful to Rev. Dr Stephen Laird FSA for preparing this catalogue entry.