Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)

Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In the rough and bold etchings of the Carceri, Piranesi achieved the immediacy of a drawn sketch in print. The low viewpoint and the small size of the figures emphasize the immensity of these invented spaces, based on stage prisons rather than real ones. The spatial anomalies were meant not to be logical but to express vastness and strength.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons)

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.