The Tomb of Nero
Medium
etching with engraving and drypoint
Dimensions
sheet: 52.9 × 76.8 cm · image and plate: 39.1 × 55.3 cm
Classification
Department
Prints
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Mr. and Mrs. Charles G. Prasse Collection
Accession Number
1974.255
Tags
About this artwork
An ancient tomb, teeming with slithering snakes and overgrown vegetation, conjures the ruins of a strange and distant past in this print. The more lightly etched background appears faint against the jumble of darker lines in the foreground, as if the whole scene is slowly fading into the mist of time. Although the composition might seem to be one of pure imagination, the tomb it depicts was based on a real monument the artist had observed near Rome. Fascinated by classical antiquity, Giovanni Ba...