Tomb with Sphinxes and an Owl
Louis Jean Desprez (French, 1743–1804)
c. 1779–84
- Medium
- aquatint with etching
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Platemark: 34 x 48.7 cm (13 3/8 x 19 3/16 in.); Sheet: 35 x 50.3 cm (13 3/4 x 19 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Prints
- Credit line
- Severance and Greta Millikin Trust
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Originally trained as an architect, Louis Jean Desprez produced this print depicting a tomb while living in Rome. He combined details observed while visiting catacombs in southern Italy with macabre inventions, such as the pair of feet visible from within the sculptural space. Desprez creatively used aquatint—a printmaking technique that produces shades of gray—to render the space’s dramatic shadows and stone surfaces.
