Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Although the dramatically jagged hatching of the pen lines at right gives the impression that this sheet was thrown off in a fury of invention, Piranesi actually constructed the drawing with care. He first laid out the composition with black chalk, then added pen lines of varying thickness, and finished with several layers of transparent brown wash. The sheet is one of several inspired by Tiepolo's Scherzi, though the architectural elements in the background recall some of Piranesi's own earlier studies for the Prima parte di architetture. The vase pouring water, muscular nude, and half-skeletal creatures sitting atop the ruins all reappear in the "Skeletons" plate of Piranesi's Grotteschi.