Featured Help identify 18th-century copper engravings marked "Tom. IX."

I have two copper engravings on laid paper (21 × 27 cm, plate mark visible) depicting Roman oil lamps. Both are marked "Tom. IX." and numbered figures 81–82 and 93–94. I cannot identify the publication because the official Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte has only eight volumes. Does anyone recognize the source?
The colors are better rappresented by the first image. Don't know why the scanner made the second one so white.

 

Welcome to the Forum Alex.I'm an amateur-but these could be true 18th Cent engravings. It'd probably be best to have an experienced Antiquarian specialist look at them, in person if possible. When you hold it up to the light do you see a watermark in the paper, and is it a 'laid' construction,ie:

'book paper was predominantly laid paper during the first half of the 18th century. It was made by hand using a wooden frame fitted with closely spaced wire lines that left a ribbed texture. Wove paper without these lines was only invented around 1757.'

• Ribbed Texture: Features fine vertical or horizontal "laid lines" crossed by wider-spaced "chain lines" from the wire mold.

• Material Composition: Made from natural linen and cotton rags rather than modern wood pulp.

• Watermarks: Frequently contains maker marks or symbols sewn into the wire grid of the hand mold.

 

To catch the rest of us up on what you already know:

https://www.chairish.com/product/14005246/giovanni-battista-casanova-oil-lamp-etching-18th-century

"Oil lamp is an etching realized by giovanni battista casanova (1735-1810). The etching belongs to the print suite “antiquities of herculaneum exposed” (original title: “le antichità di ercolano esposte”), an eight-volume volume of engravings of the finds from the excavation of the ruins of herculaneum in the kingdom of naples (now campania, italy). It was published between 1757 and 1792 by the regia stamperia, and copies were delivered to selected recipients across europe. Despite the title, the antiquity of herculaneum shows objects from all the excavations undertaken by the bourbons in the gulf of naples. These include pompeii, stabia and two sites of herculaneum: resina and portici. The bourbon king carlo appointed fifteen scholars creating a new “herculaneum academy” to study the artifacts and publish the results of the archaeological excavations of the sites. The engravings are of high quality and the accompanying text shows a large scholarship. They were realized by 25 prominent artists involved by the king to prepare drawings and engravings on the finds, among which we can find giovanni elia morghen, carlo nolli, luigi vanvitelli and giovanni battista casanova. The “antiquities” was designed more to amaze readers with the quality of the objects in the collection of the king of naples than to be used in research., following and increasing the interest of 18th century society for the classical culture and art in particular"

The lamp in the Chairish print is a different one from the one posted, but multiple sources attribute the posted lamp also to Casanova.

Alex's issue is not the authenticity of the print, but its published source. "Tom. IX" is Volume 9, but the commonly known source of this print only has 8 volumes.

 

@Alex Mercuri , That is mysterious! I found this which is similar to one of yours, but the images are placed horizontally in the one I found, and vertically in yours. There is identification in the following link, but it is still referring the prints as being from Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte, which has eight volumes, as you noted.
It appears one of these is copied from the other, but which?
https://www.pamono.eu/giovanni-battista-casanova-oil-lamp-etching-18th-century-5

It says it is an etching(?) by Giovanni Battista Casanova (1735-1810).

This probably muddles the situation, and obviously it needs more research...

 

I did find out that there was an 18th-century publication, Pierre Sylvain Maréchal's Antiquités d'Herculanum, published in 1780 in 11 or 12 volumes. The engraver was François-Anne David (1741-1824). In a couple of sites it says that Volume 9 has 108 pages of text and 129 plates. Not sure whether this is the right one for your engravings.

 

Here are the lamps in their original context in Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte (courtesy of the Internet Archive) -


https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008412310/page/68/mode/2up


https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008412310/page/214/mode/2up

In both cases, the images have been reoriented from horizontal pairs to vertical. They have also been reversed/flipped. This usually indicates that they have been copied from the original images as printed (not the original plates), and become reversed in the secondary printing process.

So you will be looking for some later reprint version of Le Antichità di Ercolano Esposte, possibly the one @Figtree3 found.

 

This is the correct book:

https://www.google.nl/books/edition...IAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT67&printsec=frontcover

 

The quality of the engraving appears much better in the edition @Ex Libris found than in @Alex Mercuri's version -




https://www.google.nl/books/edition...Les_plus_bel/WcFNAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=93

 

Thank you all very much for your help! Really appreciate it!