Sheet of Sketches: Standing Man with Raised Arm, Cherubim
1768/78
Medium
Pen and black ink, and charcoal, with traces of black chalk, on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
23.1 × 36.5 cm (9 1/8 × 14 3/8 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
113521
Art Historical Context
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the visionary 18th-century Italian renowned for his dramatic etchings ancient Roman architecture and fantastical "Prisons," created this dynamic sheet of sketches around 1768–78, near the end of his prolific career. Titled *Sheet of Sketches: Standing Man with Raised Arm, Cherubim*, it captures quick studies of a muscular standing figure dramatically raising one arm, alongside playful cherubim—winged childlike figures evoking classical and Baroque motifs. These preparatory drawings likely served as models for populating Piranesi's grand architectural fantasies, blen...
About the Artist
Giovanni Battista Piranesi · 1720–1778
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) was an Italian printmaker, architect, and antiquarian whose visionary etchings of Rome and imaginary prisons revolutionized architectural representation and profoundly influenced both Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Piranesi stands as one of the most important printmakers of the eighteenth century, fundamentally shaping European perceptions of ancient Rome an...