The Tomb of Nero
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian, 1720 - 1778
about 1748
Etching on heavy laid paper
Plate: 15 1/4 × 21 3/8 in. (38.7 × 54.3 cm)
Sheet: 20 9/16 × 27 5/16 in. (52.3 × 69.3 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College
PR.977.25.44
Portfolio / Series Title
Grotteschi (Grotesques)
Geography
Place Made: Italy, Europe
Period
1600-1800
Object Name
Research Area
On view
Inscriptions
Signed, in plate, lower left: Piranesi invento' ed incise; Signed, in plate, lower right: Ap. [superscript] o Piranesi dirimpetto l'Accademia di Francia in Roma; Watermark: [fleur-de-lis in circle, Hind 1]
Label
The printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi created many images of ancient Rome, which he imagined in various states of ruin and picturesque decay. In this image, Piranesi does not capture a real scene of ancient Rome but instead combines familiar sculptural elements such as columns, archways, statues, and reliefs to suggest the wealth of sculpture surviving from Antiquity. For Europeans both in Rome and throughout the continent, such sculpture offered a tangible link to the past. Surviving sculpture—whether sarcophagi like the tomb at the center or fragments like the broken column capitals at the lower left—was a continuing source of wonder.
From the 2024 exhibition Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art, and Ashley B. Offill, Curator of Collections
Course History
ARTH 27.03, Building Boom: Architecture and Urbanism in Early Modern Italy, Elizabeth Kassler-Taub, Fall 2021
History 42.01, Women's Gender, and Sexuality Studies 22.01, Gender & European Society, Patrick Meehan, Spring 2024
History 96.39, Saints and Relics, Cecilia Gaposchkin, Spring 2024
Italian 1.01, Introductory Italian I, Noemi Perego, Spring 2024
Italian 11.01, Intensive Italian, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024
Italian 2.01, Introductory Italian II, Floriana Ciniglia, Spring 2024
Italian 3.01, Introductory Italian III, Tania Convertini, Spring 2024
Italian 3.02, Introductory Italian III, Giorgio Alberti, Spring 2024
Exhibition History
Etchings by Piranesi, Center for the Arts, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania, October 15-November 11, 1978.
Living with Sculpture: Presence and Power in Europe, 1400–1750, Citrin Family Gallery and Engles Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 23, 2024–March 22, 2025.
St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, November 15-December 15, 1978.
Catalogue Raisonne
Focillon 22; Hind p. 80 no. 26
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