[Psyches et Amoris nuptiae fabula a Raphaele Sanctio Urbinate Romae in Farnesianis hortis Transtyberim ad veterum aemulationem ac laudem colorum luminibus expressa a... Dorigny... delineata et incisa, et a Ioanne Petro Belloriio notis illustrata]

Rome: Domenico de' Rossi, 1693. Large folio. 10 hand-coloured engraved plates by Dorigny on laid paper (each 15 7/8 x 26 inches approximately), titles and imprints printed in gold, black ink-ruled borders, each plate cut to the edge of the image, mounted on large sheets of contemporary thick laid paper (each 29 3/8 x 40 3/8 inches approximately). Unbound

A very fine suite of richly hand-coloured plates offering a stunning visual record of one of the best of the decorative interior schemes carried out by Raphael in Rome.

This wonderful series records Raphael's 'Cupid and Psyche' series of frescoes, carried out by him between 1516 and 1518 in the Loggia of Psyche in the villa Farnesina in Rome. The series also comes with a title and an eleventh plate of the ceiling fresco in the adjoining Sala di Galatea, executed in 1512: neither the plate nor the title are present here. Originally published by the Rossis, the engravings are the work of Nicolas Dorigny (1658-1746) who lived and worked in Rome between about 1690 and 1719. The painter, classicist, and art historian Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613-1696) provided the text at the foot of the plates (appropriate excerpts from Apuleuis's Golden Ass).

"Raphael Invenit: Stampe da Rafaello" (1985) Dorigny 37-46; cf. Brunet IV, 1111; cf. Berlin Katalog 4066.