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Grotto and Friars, from The Ruins of Rome
Bartholomeus Breenbergh (Dutch, 1598-1657)
1639/1640
- Medium
- Etching in black on ivory laid paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Plate: 10 × 6.1 cm (3 15/16 × 2 7/16 in.); Sheet: 10.2 × 6.3 cm (4 1/16 × 2 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Holland
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Wallace L. DeWolf and Joseph Brooks Fair Collections
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Bartholomeus Breenbergh produced a series of 50 small-scale etchings of Roman ruins based on drawings he made in Rome during the 1620s. He worked them into prints after his return to the Netherlands and published them as a set around 1640. His paintings and prints did not yet show the influence of Rembrandt’s experimental effects with the etching needle. As a result, this scene of tiny religious figures huddled under an outcropping of rock is more documentary than emotionally charged.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
