The Skeletons, from "Grotteschi" (Grotesques)
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
Piranesi made his series of print the Grotteschi when he returned to Rome after a stay in Venice, where he is said to have worked briefly with Tiepolo. The four etchings reflect encounter with the remarkable prints of the famous Venetian . In The Skeletons, the light, sketchy strokes of varying lengths found in some areas of the print recall Tiepolo's technique, while the combination of skulls, vegetation, and crumbling ruins, as well as the ambiguity of the subject, are characteristics shared with Tiepolo's Scherzi (1976.537.19) and Capricci series. A few direct quotations from Tiepolo are seen in the Grotteschi—the smiling herm who appears here and in The Triumphal Arch has its source in one of Tiepolo's Scherzi. Whether Piranesi worked for Tiepolo or merely became acquainted with him, it appears likely that the older artist introduced Piranesi to the work of his favorite seventeenth-century printmakers. The skeletons in this print recall certain etchings by Stefano della Bella (59.570.379[3]), while Salvator Rosa (17.50.17–85)—who also depicted piles of bones, ruins, and smoking urns—provides a model for the scribbled lines and webs of crosshatching that first appear in this series.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.