Carcere, Plate V

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

In a vast prison building decorated with huge reliefs of lions and a sculpture of a bound man, prisoners, dressed in rags, appear to be engaged in heavy, manual labour. Through an arch to the right an enormous grand staircase can be seen.

Piranesi began work on the first series of 14 prints showing carceri (jails) between July 1745 and August 1747. The designs were published as ‘Carceri d’Invenzione’ (Jails of Invention) in 1749/50. The ambitious size, theatrical perspective and sinister atmosphere (partly created by the cables, pulleys and levers included, which suggest extreme labour and torture) marked the works out as something new.

Ten years after the first series of ‘Carceri’, Piranesi radically reworked the same plates and added two additional designs to the series. He also increased the contrasts between the lit spaces and shadows and made the architectural forms more elaborate. Today, Piranesi’s work is best-known by these later plates.

This example is thought to have been published in the 19th-century. Between 1835 and 1839, ‘Carceri d’Invenzione’ was reissued in Paris by the Didot family of printers and publishers, using Piranesi’s original printing blocks.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born in Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso. He studied architecture under his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi. His most original works are etchings of extravagant, imaginary prisons, published as ‘Carceri d’Invenzione’ (1749/50). However, he is better known for views of ancient and modern Rome, published from 1745 onwards as ‘Vedute’, and for pro-Roman, anti-Greek writings, based on archaeological resources. Piranesi’s work greatly influenced 18th-century architecture and representations of the Decline and Fall of Rome. In 1757 he was made a member of the Society of Antiquaries in London. In 1771, Horace Walpole wrote: ‘Piranesi ...conceived visions of Rome beyond what it boasted even in the meridian of its splendour.’

Places

Subjects

rope, footbridge, prison, archway, staircase, public interior

Materials & Techniques

etching

Artist

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778)

Title

Carcere, Plate V

Date

Medium

Etching

Acquisition

Origin uncertain

Inscription

in plate, br: Piranesi F. ; tl: V ; upper right: 353

GAC number

0/237