The Giant Wheel

1780s

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Associated Names
Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Artist, Venetian, 1720 - 1778

The image displays intersecting lines and geometric shapes forming an abstract composition. There are massive stone blocks, a skeletal framework, crisscrossing beams, arches, overgrown vegetation, and small figures on the rocks.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    etching, engraving [date should be read as "published 1780s"]

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Accession Number

    1943.3.6993

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Robison 1986, no. 35, State vii/viii

Artwork history & notes

Exhibition History

1934

  • Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Pennsylvania Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 1934.

1945

  • Architectural Prints, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1945, no cat.

1956

  • Renaissance to Roccoco: A Loan Exhibition of Italian Engravings and Woodcuts, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 1956, no cat.

Bibliography

1918

  • Focillon 32.

1922

  • Hind 9.

1986

  • Robison, Andrew. Piranesi Early Architectural Fantasies: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Etchings. Washington: National Gallery of Art; Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1986.

Wikidata ID

Q65020182

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