The Skeletons (1750): Artwork and History

The Skeletons (1750) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Giovanni Battista Piranesi Italian, 1720-1778.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

This print is one of four grotesques (decorative fantasies) included in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s popular series of architectural views of Rome and its surroundings. This kind of composition was inspired by Roman wall decorations discovered during the Renaissance and was meant to incorporate dissimilar elements in a whimsical and ornamental manner. This particular etching includes, among other things, a back view of the often-copied Farnese Hercules, a large zodiac wheel partly visible at the upper right, and various fragmentary skeletons adorned with tufts of wavy hair.

Object facts

• Title: The Skeletons
• Date: 1750
• Artist attribution: Giovanni Battista Piranesi Italian, 1720-1778
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Etching on heavy ivory laid paper
• Dimensions: Image: 38.9 × 54.2 cm (15 3/8 × 21 3/8 in.); Plate: 39.3 × 54.7 cm (15 1/2 × 21 9/16 in.); Sheet: 59 × 80.7 cm (23 1/4 × 31 13/16 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1922.5606

Collection credit

The Art Institute of Chicago

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.