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.
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
Credit Line
The Charles Deering Collection
Related Artworks
Villa Pamphili outside Porta S. Pancrazio, from Views of Rome
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Another view of the Temple of the Sibyl in Tivoli, from Views of Rome
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View of the Villa of His Eminence Cardinal Alessandro Albani, outside Porta Salaria, from Views of Rome
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View of the Remains of the Praetorian Fort [the Poecile], Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, from Views of Rome
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