HAMILTON, William, Sir, 1730-1803 Collection of Engravings from Ancient Vases Mostly of Pure Greek Workmanship Discovered in Sepulchres in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ... &c. Vol. I [of 4] Naples: M. W. Tischbein, Director of the Royal Academy of Painting, 1791-1795. Published in both French and English. The vases were drawn from Sir W. Hamilton’s own collection.

Engraved title page of one of the most interesting books produced in the eighteenth century. Soon after arriving in Naples, then a very important European capital, Hamilton had admired the antiquities that were being excavated especially in Pompeii and Haerculaneum, and himself was present at various sites in Campania where beautiful objects and vases were continuously brought to light, making drawing of them and, often, purchasing them outright for his own collection. In particular the color plates of the vases that he helped draw inspired in England a new aesthetic fashion of the ancient, and prompted Josua Wedgewood, among other, to create beautiful neo-classical pottery.

Titolo calcografico di uno dei piú interessanti libri prodotti a Napoli nel diciottesimo secolo. Subito dopo il suo arrivo a Napoli, una città che allora veniva annoverata tra le piú importanti capitali europee, Hamilton fu subito colpito dalle antichità classiche e dai magnifici reperti che venivano continuamente portati alla luce in vari siti archeologici del Regno delle due Sicilie, soprattutto a Pompei ed Ercolano, e lui stesso si recò in questi siti per osservarne i ritrovamenti, per fare degli schizzi, e spesso per acquistarli per la propria collezione. In particolare furono proprio le bellissime immagini dei vasi stampati a colori in vari volumi a risvegliare in Inghilterra la nuova moda per il passato classico e a indurre Joshua Wedgwood ed altri a creare vasellame ed altre opere artistiche ispirate ad esso.

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