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A vast stone interior rises through arched openings, ropes, and beams, centred on a round tower ringed by a spiral stair and a barred window. Bridges and catwalks cross the space at several levels, hung with pulleys, chains, and a lantern on a post, while tiny figures stand on the stairs and platforms far below. Dense cross-hatching darkens the vaults and shadows throughout the etching.
This plate belongs to Piranesi’s Carceri d’invenzione, sixteen etchings of vast, impossible prison interiors that he began around 1745 and reworked for a darker second edition in 1761. The series had no real precedent: Piranesi drew on his stage-design training to build labyrinths of stairs, bridges, and machinery that recede without resolving into a coherent structure. Widely reproduced since, the Carceri went on to influence Romantic and Surrealist artists drawn to their theatrical, dreamlike sense of confinement. This impression is a first-state print from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) was an architect by training who became the greatest etcher of Rome. His Vedute di Roma sold to every visitor on the Grand Tour, but it is the Carceri d’invenzione — imaginary prisons of staircases, chains and vaults that lead nowhere — that fixed his reputation, printed first around 1749 and reworked more darkly in the 1760s. His plates shaped the Romantic idea of ruin and scale. His etchings are held by the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Rijksmuseum.
Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.
