# Grotto and Friars, from The Ruins of Rome

- By: Bartholomeus Breenbergh (Dutch, 1598-1657)
- Date: 1639/1640
- Medium: Etching in black on ivory laid paper
- Classification: Print
- 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
- Credit line: The Wallace L. DeWolf and Joseph Brooks Fair Collections
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/106671)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/c39648c453b744e585ae445b3b0d9c28.jpg
- Who can see it: Kids profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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