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Object Timeline

1959

  • We acquired this object.

2015

2025

  • You found it!

Print, The Arch of Marcus Aurelius

This is a Print. It was created by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. It is dated 1762 and we acquired it in 1959. Its medium is etching. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.


In the 1760s Piranesi produced a number of polemical volumes celebrating the architectural genius of Rome over that of Greece. Il Campo Marzio, one of these treatises accompanied by illustrations, contained a giant fold-out plan and forty-seven additional plates that recreated the Campo Marzio quarter of Imperial Rome between the modern Via del Corso and the Tiber.

Its dimensions are

39.8 x 24.4 cm (plate mark), 63.0 x 45.4 cm (paper)

Cite this object as

Print, The Arch of Marcus Aurelius; Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, 1720–1778); Italy; etching; 39.8 x 24.4 cm (plate mark), 63.0 x 45.4 cm (paper); 1959-112-1

This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions). You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian. For more information, visit the Smithsonian’s Terms of Use page.

If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-6.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18424359/ |title=Print, The Arch of Marcus Aurelius |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=22 March 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>