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Giovanni Battista Piranesi

View of the Grand Cascade at Tivoli, from Views of Rome

1766
Etching on ivory laid paper
47.1 × 70.2 cm (18.5 × 27.6 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Giovanni Battista Piranesi had supplied decades of tourists with his massive, masterly etchings of architectural monuments in Rome and its environs by the time he completed his Views of Rome series in the late 1770s. The waterfall pictured here, in the ancient town of Tivoli, was a natural wonder, and the 16th-century Villa d’Este nearby channeled the same waterpower into a flamboyantly artificial series of fountains, automata (mechanical toys moved by water), and strategic cascades. Both were must-sees for Europeans on their Grand Tours.

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