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Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)

Publisher Giovanni Bouchard Italian
ca. 1749–50
Not on view
In the rough and bold etchings of the Carceri, Piranesi achieved the immediacy of a drawn sketch in print. The low viewpoint and the small size of the figures emphasize the immensity of these invented spaces, based on stage prisons rather than real ones. The spatial anomalies were meant not to be logical but to express vastness and strength.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)
  • Series/Portfolio: Carceri d'invenzione
  • Artist: Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, Mogliano Veneto 1720–1778 Rome)
  • Publisher: Giovanni Bouchard (French, ca. 1716–1795)
  • Date: ca. 1749–50
  • Medium: Etching, engraving, sulphur tint or open bite, burnishing; first state of four (Robison)
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 19 1/2 x 25 3/16 in. (49.5 x 64 cm)
    Plate: 16 1/8 x 21 1/4 in. (41 x 54 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1937
  • Object Number: 37.45.3(33)
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Veduta del Tempio di Giove Tonante, Giovanni Battista Piranesi Italian, Engraving
Veduta del Tempio di Giove Tonante
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1740s–60s
View of the Pantheon of Agrippa, today called S. Maria ad Martyres (Veduta del Pantheon d'Agrippa oggi Chiesa di S. Maria ad Martyre)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
ca. 1761
Catalogo delle Opere (1761)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1757, 1761
The Piazza del Popolo (Veduta della Piazza del Popolo)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
1750
View of the Temple of Cybele in the Piazza of the Bocca della Verità (Veduta del Tempio di Cibele a Piazza della Bocca della Verità), Giovanni Battista Piranesi Italian, etching
View of the Temple of Cybele in the Piazza of the Bocca della Verità (Veduta del Tempio di Cibele a Piazza della Bocca della Verità)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
ca. 1758

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