Wien, Leopold Müller, 1842-1844. Broadsheet (30.5 x 23.5 cm). Chromolithograph. In modern cardboard frame.

This is the work of architecture illustrator and decorative painter Giovanni Battista (also Jean or Johann Baptist) de Pian (1813-1857). Originally, 26 sheets were published, each with a different letter of the Roman capital alphabet. The letters are functionally integrated into the architecture of building sections and buildings in a more-or-less realistically conceived landscape. Complete copies of the Alphabet Pittoresque are extremely rare, and even individual sheets are almost impossible to find. Only one complete copy is documented worldwide (WorldCat), and only one complete copy is documented at auction: Christie's New York, Sale 2781 (Vershbow Collection), No. 818 (2013), and Forum Auctions, London (2020; same copy). Trimmed (as is the copy at Christie's/Forum), thus omitting the printer's imprint. Some light creasing, juvenile drawing on verso; otherwise very good. Reprinted under the title A Decorative Alphabet from Vienna(with an essay by Anton Durstmüller), Stuttgart 1973. Not in Twyman, Chromolithography. See also J. Kiermeier-Debre and F. F. Vogel, Antonio Basoli - Alfabeto Pittorico 1839.