View of the Grand Cascade at Tivoli, from Views of Rome

Description

Giovanni Battista Piranesi had supplied decades of tourists with his massive, masterly etchings of architectural monuments in Rome and its environs by the time he completed his Views of Rome series in the late 1770s. The waterfall pictured here, in the ancient town of Tivoli, was a natural wonder, and the 16th-century Villa d’Este nearby channeled the same waterpower into a flamboyantly artificial series of fountains, automata (mechanical toys moved by water), and strategic cascades. Both were must-sees for Europeans on their Grand Tours.

View of the Grand Cascade at Tivoli, from Views of Rome

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

1766

Accession Number

48064

Medium

Etching on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

Image: 47.1 × 70.2 cm (18 9/16 × 27 11/16 in.); Sheet: 50.5 × 72 cm (19 15/16 × 28 3/8 in.)

Classification

etching

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

The Charles Deering Collection