Design for a Stage Set: Longitudinal Section and Plan of Amphitheater

A pen and brown ink drawing shows a baroque theater in longitudinal section, with a richly ornamented stage facade crowned by statues and rows of tiered seating curving to the left. Below, a ground plan of the amphitheater is drawn in thin radiating lines. Faint gray wash softens the architecture.

Look closer: Small figures of statues and people are placed along the stage balustrades and roofline.

Artist

Giuseppe Galli Bibiena

Date

1696–1756

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and gray wash

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

4000 × 3011 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Bequest of Joseph H. Durkee, by exchange, 1972