The Round Tower, plate 3 from the second edition of Carceri d'invenzione (Imaginary Prisons)
1750, reworked 1761
Medium
Etching, engraving, sulphur tint, and burnishing in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 54.2 × 41 cm (21 3/8 × 16 3/16 in.); Plate: 54.9 × 41.6 cm (21 5/8 × 16 7/16 in.); Sheet: 56.1 × 42.5 cm (22 1/8 × 16 3/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
74624
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In addition to dramatic views of Roman architecture, Giovanni Battista Piranesi created a series of prison interiors that were entirely invented. These vast, entangled passageways and cavernous chambers were first printed around 1750. Ten years later, Piranesi reworked the plates, heightening their ominous state in an implied critique of social injustice.
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...