I think a Vespasian would be appropriate and fun for the bathroom wall. Maybe something like this: The coin photo in my guest throne room needs to be reprinted. It and the Cloacina candle were damaged in the hurricanes.
Great prints Justin!! Many (most) antique prints like this have been extracted from published books. I find myself with boxes of abused and more than well used books containing plates which I suppose I eventually will disbind to save the plates. Most recently came across the Plate Volume to an 1841 edition of Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of The Ancient Egyptians which contains 88 plates: A BOOK BREAKER is a generally derogatory term used in the booktrade too describe such sellers of plates and maps from books, but I always take exception to the term since many books are so far gone that it becomes a salvage operation to save those parts of a book which other people can purchase and enjoy singly. There have been notorious instances of book breaking in the Map & Print trade where dealers will purchase a wholly acceptable volume and then rip it up to sell the single plates. The Double-Elephant Folio edition of Audubon's The Birds of America, for example, has become an extremely expensive book nowadays with complete copies commanding 10 million and any buyer would be ostracized for breaking a complete copy, but twenty-thirty years ago it was kinda common to buy such book and break it since the individual parts often will surpass the value of the whole. Here are some single Audubon plates for example. Some rambling here but just to say if you ever frequent sales where you run across old books keep a keen eye out for those rough beat up volumes that have cool contents. -d
Those antique prints are fantastic, @Justin Lee. I'll definitely be on the look out to pick up a few of those now.
I'm just going to pretend this thread never happened...not because the prints and plates aren't great, but because my budget can't afford a fourth awesome hobby. You have to draw the line at some boundary. But if I ever win the lottery....
When my son was 5 years old, we went to the Dali Museum. The tour guide had just told us that this painting was appraised at $15,000,000. I lined my son up for this photograph. Right after I took it, my son turned around and touched the painting. I quickly rushed at him and pulled him back, but not before accidentally touching the painting myself. We were politely asked never to come back again and told I would be given a tresspass warning to make sure I didn't return. They asked for ID to get my name, and I lied and said I had no ID, and told them my name was Carlos Rodriguez (which is most definitely not the case). So somewhere in America there's a Carlos Rodriguez that's permanently banned from the Dali Museum for something someone else's son did.
Ok, I started looking around and I caved. I found one I really liked for my office. It is going to look real fine on the wall. 35 x 24.5 cm (13.8 x 9.8 inches). De Urbis Colossis (1699 CE) Pietro Santi Bartoli Copperplate engraving on chain-linked cotton paper. (Hand painted). You guys are a bad influence. I'll probably end up getting 2 or 3 more old copperplate engravings for my office wall before all is said and done. Definitely beats the modern amateur Cuban paintings of scenery of Havana that I have currently up as decoration... which are definitely not my taste and the only reason I have them up is because they were hand-me-downs (ie. free wall decor).
Not engravings but I have admired these on David Sears web site. These sculptures look fantastic. http://www.davidrsear.com/feature.html
Game night at TIF's house: Pecunia non olet – "Money doesn't Stink" A card game set in old Rome, in which the players act as rental toilette owners, who have to earn their money from the Romans , who feel an urgent need... You have three toilets to rent to several different types of Romans: Women, who can share a place, senators, who refuse to sit next to slaves, and citizens. Each Roman has a specific amount of time he/she will need and a sum of money he/she will pay afterwards. Whoever reaches a certain fortune wins the game. The game includes 70 roman "customer cards", 40 action cards, roman coins and wooden round markers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_toilet The Wikipedia article says that Vespasian charged for using his toilets but that is not the story as I have always heard it. The practice I had heard was questioned by Titus was the selling the urine collected in the toilets to laundry, tanning and other businesses that used it for the ammonia. Does anyone have a primary reference that would clarify this one way or the other? I am firmly of the belief that 99% of all modern humans from what we term 'developed' nations would be truly shocked by the odor they would experience if time travel were possible. Rome was able to become such a large city and be relatively free from contagion because of their system of running water. I don't think the average person in most of 'history' would pay to use a toilet.
I made a lower offer on this one on eBay and it was accepted. It's a lithographic print from 1888. A fantastic depiction of the Acropolis as it would have been during the Golden Age of Athenian democracy. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, as it doesn't fit in with the copperplates from 1699 which I'm having framed, but I suppose I could eventually add a few more colored Greek themed lithographic prints from the late 19th or early 20th century in the future and fill one wall of my office with it, and save the other for the Roman themed prints.