Preservation and Progress: The prints of Piranesi and their journey to Middlebury

Yale University Senior Conservator of Works on Paper Theresa Fairbanks-Harris delivered a lecture titled “Piranesi’s Prints: Paper, Process, and Preservation” at the Mahaney Arts Center (MAC) on Oct. 16. The event, held in conjunction with the exhibition “Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Visions of Grandeur”, offered a behind-the-scenes look into how conservators protect and interpret fragile works on paper and how technical study informs both restoration and art historical research. 

Fairbanks-Harris discussed the relationship between material evidence and historical understanding. Through close visual analysis of paper texture, watermarks and ink distribution, she demonstrated how every print carries a record of its own making. Conservators, she explained, read these details much like scholars read texts, tracing the physical marks that reveal both the artist’s process and the life of the object beyond the studio.

A leading figure in her field, Fairbanks-Harris has dedicated over four decades to the care and study of rare prints, drawings and manuscripts. Her portfolio includes works by Dürer, Rembrandt, Whistler and many others. She has trained generations of conservators and collaborated with many curators and art historians to expand the study of paper as a living, rather than static, material. 

Building on this approach, Fairbanks-Harris framed her presentation around Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s etchings of Rome — which depicted imagined ruins, monumental staircases and vast spaces that merge accuracy with invention. His prints capture both the grandeur of classical antiquity and the imaginative power of artistic reconstruction.  

Fairbanks-Harris used these etchings to show how careful examination of structure and composition can yield new insights into both technique and preservation. One of her central points was the distinction between original prints and their many modern reproductions, particularly in the case of Piranesi. 

To the untrained eye, a digital facsimile might appear convincing. However, to a conservator, the difference lies in the physical evidence embedded within the object itself. Elements like the impression left by the copper plate, the texture of handmade paper, the particular absorption of ink into its fibers and the presence of a watermark all work together to tell a material story that can’t be replicated by scanning or reprinting.

To further demonstrate this gap between appearance and authenticity, Fairbanks-Harris brought with her a reproduction of a Piranesi print she had purchased online from Etsy. At a glance, the print mimicked the style and imagery of the original, but it lacked the qualities that define a true intaglio impression. While she acknowledged the ethical tension in purchasing a reproduction, especially as a conservator, she defended the act as pedagogical, as it can help students to spot differences between reproductions and original versions. 

Fairbanks-Harris continued this tactile approach after the talk with a hands-on display at the front of the lecture hall. Samples of paper with different textures and weights, both original and reproduced prints, allowed for a side-by-side comparison. At the center was a copper intaglio plate, which invited participants to imagine the labor and craftsmanship behind each etched line. By placing these tools into the hands of her audience, Fairbanks-Harris returned to the core of her practice: a transmission of material knowledge. 

This discussion provided a fitting complement to “Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Visions of Grandeur”, on view at the Middlebury College Museum of Art until Dec. 7. The exhibition features etchings, drawings, books and a Roman urn altered by Piranesi himself, tracing his evolution from an architectural draftsman to a printmaker of major influence within European visual culture. 

The exhibition drew primarily from the Middlebury College Museum of Art and the college’s Special Collections and Archives. Additional works were on loan from the Yale University Art Gallery, the Morgan Library & Museum, Agnew’s Gallery and a private collection. Most of the wall texts and labels were researched and written by students in the Winter Term seminar “Curatorial Lab: Piranesi, Artist, Architect, and Archaeologist”. Under the guidance of Professor of History of Art & Architectural Studies Pieter Broucke and Jodi Rogers, curator of collections at the museum, 10 undergraduate students engaged directly in curatorial work and helped shape the exhibition, namely by purchasing the 1748 map of Rome “pianta piccola” that Piranesi contributed decorative elements to.

“The students read up, fast, on Piranesi as a person, an artist, a designer, an archaeologist and a polemicist,” Broucke said. “The students already knew about the powers of conservation, and now that map, the student-initiated acquisition, is one of the centerpieces of the exhibition.”

The exhibition unfolded across 10 thematic sections, each revealing a different side of Piranesi’s artistic imagination. Students took the lead in selecting pieces, writing texts and working with Jodi Rodgers and other museum staff on layout and design. One section paired a first-century Roman funerary urn, restored and reimagined by Piranesi, with an etching he made of the same object, a pairing that captured the way he blurred the boundaries between artist, restorer and historian.

“Visions of Grandeur” itself became a study in collaboration. The curatorial process, from research to acquisition and restoration, echoed Piranesi’s own practice of rebuilding the past through fragments. The exhibition came together through the combined efforts of students, faculty, conservators and the generosity of partner institutions like Yale, whose loans and expertise expanded what was possible within the college’s walls.

For the students, the project offered a chance to step inside the living networks of museum work, to make decisions that shaped what others would see. In the end, “Visions of Grandeur” stood as both tribute and continuation, a meditation on the endurance of creative labor and the shared care that keeps it alive. Piranesi’s work, still resonant centuries later, reminds viewers that every image is also an object, and every object bears the imprint of the hands that made it.

---