Pierre d' Hancarville. Monumens du culte secret des dames Romaines: pour servir de suite aux monumens de la vie ...

Pierre d' Hancarville. Monumens du culte secret des dames Romaines: pour servir de suite aux monumens de la vie privée des 12 Césars. Premiere Partie.
Rome: de l'imprimerie du Vatican, 1787 XX p., 48 l., 24 engravings of erotic content on separate sheets under tracing paper. Hard leather cover `marble` with gold lettering on the spine, three-sided gold sawn-off, art bookends, Verger paper, format 13 x 20 cm.

Very good condition: professionally restored, first three leaves, there are traces of active reading - polluted bottom corners of the pages, on separate sheets traces of moisture, and Fox stains, tracings have damage and minor loss, the unit is strong, partial loss of the gilding on the edge. 

The Hyuga were issued two volumes of pornographic content under the fictitious prints:

- Monumens de la vie privée des XII Césars d'apres une suite de pierres et médailles gravées sous leur règne. Corsaire, Chez Sabellus, 1780. 

- Monumens du culte secret des dames romaines. Rome: de l'imprimerie du Vatican, 1787. 

They were widely pirated during his lifetime.

[Pierre Francois Hugues was born in 1719 in Nancy, France, the son of a bankrupt cloth merchant. Later, he would add the title "Baron d" to his name.'Ancerville".

As an art dealer, he introduced William Hamilton, the British Ambassador to Naples, to the Porcinari family, whose collection of antiquities Hamilton bought and later sold to the British Museum in London. Together with Hamilton, Hugh collected a collection of Etruscan, Greek, and Roman antiquities from Honble's Cabinet, also published as Wm.Hamolton. Antiquités Etrusques, Grecques Et Romains, Tires Du Cabinet De M. Hamilton ... (4 volumes, Naples 1766-67, but possibly published 1767-76). The "antiquities" shown and discussed in these volumes represent almost all the ancient Greek vases collected in Herculaneum, Pompeii, and other parts of southern Italy and Greece. Hamilton and Hugh conceived this collection of vases not only to provide models for modern designers, but also, due to their large number, to serve as an aid in tracing the historical development of "styles of various periods in the art of the ancients" (vol. 1, p.168). In addition to discussing the technique and aesthetics of ancient vase painting, Hugh also offers some innovative ideas about the difference between art as a symbol and art as a representation - ideas that he developed in his research Sur L'origine, L'esprit Et Les Progres. Des Arts De La Grece; Sur Leur Connections Avec Les Arts Et La Religion Des Plus Anciens Peuples Connus ... (3 volumes, A Londres, 1785).

In 1772, Hamilton's first collection of vases was purchased by the British Museum. The four volumes of Antiquity, printed by Francesco Morelli and profusely illustrated (and many copies hand-painted), make up one of the most beautiful books ever created. Their illustrations were directly copied by Josiah Wedgwood and other ceramic manufacturers, and contributed to the neoclassical taste for drawing and engraving adopted by John Flaxman and others.

In 1769, d'arcarville was forced to flee from creditors in Naples.]