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Print, The Gothic Arch
This is a Print. It was print maker: Giovanni Battista Piranesi and printed by Francesco Piranesi and published by A. Firmin-Didot. It is dated 1835-1839 and we acquired it in 1959. Its medium is etching with engraving on white paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.
This etching is a second state from Plate 14 from Carceri d'Invenzioni, a series of imaginary prison interiors designed by the Roman architect, designer, and print maker, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720- 1778). This print explores the limits of the medium of etching, the technique of printmaking, and the visual and spatial limits of architectural experience itself. The etching displays a nightmarish network of arches, vaults, bridges, ramps, balconies and catwalks. Minute figures climb the infinitely recessing stairs and the endless labyrinth of machinery reduces the architectural interior to pure masonry. The Carceri is linked to Piranesi’s formative training in stage designing, as prison scenes were common in early eighteenth-century stage sets. The Carceri was first issued around 1749 but Piranesi returned to the plates in 1761. They has been interpreted as a prime example of Edmund Burke’s ideal of the sublime and this paradigm of decay, concrete and massivenss is present in his other works. This is an influential work in its afterlife as artists and writers from ranging from Joseph Mallord William Turner, Edgar Allen Poe, Victor Hugo, Sergei Eisenstein and Peter Weiss both cited Piranesi’s Carceri series as points of inspiration.
This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled The Interior of Nightmares.
This object was
donated by
Mrs. Gertrude W. Lewis.
It is credited Gift of Gertrude W. Lewis.
- Drawing, Triumphal Arch with the Royal Swedish Coat of Arms
- pen and black ink, brush and gray, green wash, watercolor, graphite on white....
- Purchased for the Museum by the Advisory Council.
- 1911-28-282
- Drawing, Study for Staircase Decoration, Hanbury Hall, Worchestershire:...
- pen and brown ink, brush and wash on tan laid paper, lined, mounted.
- 1900-1-1
Its dimensions are
53.6 x 62.5 cm (21 1/8 x 24 5/8 in.)
It has the following markings
Upper right in plate: XIV
It is signed
Lower Left in plate: Piranesi, F.
Cite this object as
Print, The Gothic Arch; Printed by Francesco Piranesi (Italian, about 1756 - 1810); Published by A. Firmin-Didot (1790 – 1876); Print Maker: Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720–1778); Italy; etching with engraving on white paper; 53.6 x 62.5 cm (21 1/8 x 24 5/8 in.); Gift of Gertrude W. Lewis; 1959-182-12
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Piranesi as Designer.
