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Monks on the Staircase of the Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli

A work made of pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with touches of watercolor, over traces of graphite, on ivory laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with touches of watercolor, over traces of graphite, on ivory laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper.

Date:

c. 1826

Artist:

François-Marius Granet
French, 1775-1849

About this artwork

In this small but powerful ink and wash drawing, Granet depicts a mysterious procession of monks moving from darkness to light up a vaulted stone staircase as monumental as it is stark. The scene’s enigmatic subject matter and gothic mood place this work in the aesthetic category of the sublime, defined in the late 1700s as a kind of “delightful horror.” The sublime was an alternative to the search for ideal beauty that characterized the more classically inspired art of the period with its emphasis on moralizing and exemplary history.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

François Marius Granet

Title

Monks on the Staircase of the Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli

Place

France (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1821–1831

Medium

Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, with touches of watercolor, over traces of graphite, on ivory laid paper, perimeter mounted on cream wove paper

Dimensions

Primary support: 19.3 × 15.7 cm (7 5/8 × 6 3/16 in.); Secondary support: 24.6 × 19.2 cm (9 11/16 × 7 9/16 in.)

Credit Line

Julius Lewis Endowment Fund

Reference Number

2010.339

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/203323/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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