Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian, 1720-1778
The Drawbridge (from the Carceri), 1749/1750
etching, engraving, and scratching (first edition, first issue, state i/vi)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, W.G. Russell Allen, Ailsa Mellon Bruce,
Lessing J. Rosenwald, and Pepita Milmore Funds 1976.35.5

View state: i/vi | v/vi

The interiors and semi-interiors of the Carceri are often paradoxical: domineering and ephemeral, oppressive and yet open to light and atmosphere, at once fanciful arenas for careful exploration and spatial conundrums impossible to navigate.