Artist: Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 1778)
Nationality: Italian
Movement: Neoclassicism
Media: Architecture,Engraving
Influences:

Biography:
Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born in Venice where he was taught to draw by his designer uncle. He initially studied stage design and perspective, revealing a talent for architecture. Piranesi moved to Rome at the age of twenty to study the city’s ancient monuments. He spent his time producing etchings of ancient ruins and modern buildings. He later traveled to southern Italy to study and etch Greek architecture. While on this trip, he fell ill and was forced return home to Rome, where he died not long after. His work was widely inspirational to later artists and literary figures in the Neoclassical and Romantic periods.

Artworks in Museum Collections: (40)
Click the artwork titles below to see actual examples of artwork or works of art relevant to works by Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Colosseum, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Studies of Soldiers, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Piramide di C.Cestio, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Campo Vaccino, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, St. Peter"s Church, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Outside View of the Colosseum, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Man on the Rack, plate II from the series Carceri, 1761
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Veduta del Sepolchro di Pisone, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Tomb of Nero, from the Grotteschi, circa 1745
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Sawhorse, plate XII, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Well, plate XIII, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Title Plate, from the Series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Man on the Rack, plate II, from the series Carceri, 1761
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Outside View of the Pantheon or Rotunda, 18th century
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Frontispiece to Volume II of Le Antichitý Romane, 1756
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Sawhorse, plate XII, from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Drawbridge, pl. VII from the series, Carceri (Prisons), 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Title Page from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Triumphal Arch, from the series Grotteschi, circa 1745
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Well, plate XIII, from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Skeletons, from the series Grotteschi, circa 1747 - 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Drawbridge, pl. VII from the series, Carceri (Prisons), circa 1761
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Giant Wheel, plate IX, from the series Carceri, 1761
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Grand Piazza, plate IV, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Smoking Fire, plate VI, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Views of Rome: Pyramid of Caius Cestius , 1755
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Gothic Arch, plate XIV, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Pier With a Lamp, plate XV, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, TheTomb of Nero, from the series Grotteschi, 1747 - 1779
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Lion Bas-Relief, plate V, from the series Carceri, 1761
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Pier with Chains, plate XVI, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Round Tower, plate III, from the series Carceri, 1749
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Veduta del Tempio detto della Tosse, 1763
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Title Page from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Smoking Fire, pl. VI from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Sawhorse, plate XII from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Well, plate XIII, from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Smoking Fire, plate VI, from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Round Tower, plate III, from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760
Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco -
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, The Pier with a Lamp, plate XV, from the series Carceri, 1749 - 1760

Artnews Articles and Exhibition Information: (10)
Click on any of the links below to read about artnews or exhibitions related to Piranesi

Santa Barbara Museum of Art: Picturing the Past: Piranesi to Pearlstein
As early as the Renaissance, the study of famous works of art of the Greek and Roman civilizations was an essential part of an artists education. The city of Rome was an important destination for anyone who ...
National Gallery of Art: The Unfinished Print: Works by Rembrandt, Piranesi, Degas, Munch and Others
The exhibition opens in conjunction with Jasper Johns: Prints from Four Decades and American Naive Paintings, which will be on view during the same period in adjacent galleries. ...
Museum of Fine Art Houston: Art of Rome in the 18th Century
In the 18th century, Rome's civic and religious leaders commissioned exceptional artists from throughout Europe to construct and embellish churches, palaces, fountains, public ...
Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona: Requiem for the Staircase: Curated by Architect Oscar Tusquets
Professor Juan Antonio Ramirez has selected a few very important paintings and drawings representing the entire history of art, in which each of the stairways has been represented by great artists. These are accompanied by film footage and lit...
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University: The Changing Garden: Four Centuries of European and American Art
The Changing Garden presents nearly 200 works—prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs—by more than 100 artists. The exhibition includes great names from art history, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Jean-Honoré Fr...
Frick Collection: When is a Work of Art Complete: Prints by Rembrandt, Piranesi, Degas, Munch and More
In the process of printmaking, an artist will normally take proof impressions as he makes changes to his plate. These proof states, as will be apparent through many groupings in the exhibition, can establish an exact record of the image in the pr...
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford: Enclosed and Enchanted
United by an interest in architecture and how the outside world can be reconfigured in the context of the gallery, these artists examine the duality in man-made, yet natural, spaces. The result is a kind of double enclosure, in which the appropria...
Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Splendor of 18th-Century Rome
A strong sense of their city's cultural centrality encouraged Rome's 18th-century civic and religious leaders to construct or embellish numerous churches, palaces, fountains, public plazas (piazze), gardens and gallerie...
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen: Paul Noble: No accidents, only mistakes
No accidents, only mistakes The city has been designed and built on ruins by invisible citizens demonstrating a ‘knock-it-down-and-start-again-spirit’. It reveals the influence of the Garden City Movement on twentieth century town planning, ...
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Triumphs of the Baroque: Architecture in Europe, 1600-1750
The Baroque style was born in Rome about 1630 and spread throughout Catholic Europe, then in a state of upheaval brought about by divisive religious conflicts. The Europe of the Hapsburgs was threatened by the rise of...

Further Artwork and Information:

Giovanni Battista Piranesi Online
Giovanni Battista Piranesi - Art Images - Works and Biography - OCAIW
CGFA- Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Text Piranesi Vedute di Roma
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Getty Museum)
PIRANESI - Index
Giovanni Piranesi
Piranesi, Giovanni Battista
Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Giovanni Battista Piranesi

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