The Tomb of Nero
1747–48
- Medium
- etching with engraving and drypoint
- Dimensions
- 39.1 × 55.3 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-197918
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 Battista Piranesi evoked his own experience of seeing ruins, which he felt could not be conveyed by a…
Provenance
Prasse Collection, 1974.255
Registry history
- 1747–48 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — prints
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