The Colosseum
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1776
$90
Print check at 12 x 8 in: 183 dpi, good. Trimmed 5.1% to the shape of the print.
Shipping to a US address: $24.80 for this piece, from the print room in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Etched in 1776, near the height of Piranesi's fame, this view of the Flavian Amphitheater — the Colosseum — is one of the most reproduced images in his entire Vedute di Roma series. Piranesi shows the ruin from an oblique, dramatically raking angle, its weathered arcades catching hard Roman light against a churning sky, ivy and scrub visibly reclaiming the upper tiers. What to notice: this is a working ruin, not a tidy one — Piranesi drew Rome's decay honestly, populated with tiny figures of clergy, tourists, and laborers going about ordinary business inside a monument built for gladiatorial spectacle seventeen centuries earlier. His views did more than document Rome; they shaped the entire Grand Tour generation's romantic idea of ruin as beautiful, not merely fallen — an idea that still governs how we photograph old stone today.
- Maker
- Giovanni Battista Piranesi
- Date
- 1776
- Medium of the original
- Plate
- Original held by
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Credit
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-00293
| Picture | 12 x 8 in |
|---|---|
| Outside size | 13.6 x 9.6 in |
| Depth | 0.9 in (22 mm) |
| Weight | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]] |
| Hanging | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]] |
| Material | Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing |
| Made in | Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi |
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | dpi | Grade | How it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 12 x 8 in | 183 | Good | Trimmed 5.1% |
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 10 x 8 in | Wrong shape: a 12% crop |
| 14 x 11 in | Wrong shape: a 11% crop |
| 16 x 12 in | 128 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 18 x 12 in | 122 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 20 x 16 in | Wrong shape: a 12% crop |
| 24 x 16 in | 91 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 24 x 18 in | 85 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 30 x 20 in | 73 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 30 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 12% crop |
| 36 x 24 in | 61 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 40 x 30 in | 51 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 48 x 36 in | 42 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 60 x 40 in | 36 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 2,200 x 1,545 px, srgb
- Tone
- Darks 61, lights 220 of 255; 0.4% clipped light, 1% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 97.67
- Notes
- Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned
Shipping for this piece to a US address is $24.80, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.
Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.
A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.
Cabinet of Curiosities
The old world’s book of wonders, for your wall.
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