Interior with Arches and Piers. Verso: Interior with circular colonnade and fountain

Deeply shadowed and somewhat irrational with regard to space, this interior is cognate with the earliest designs for the Carceri. The freely drawn and quickly hatched pen lines, combined with a painterly fluid wash, highlight Piranesi's skills as a draftsman and evince a technical facility commensurate with his mastery of printmaking techniques. The dark shapes in the foreground and under the arches in the distance, which do not resolve themselves into clear forms, have the same allusive power as do the figures and devices of the prison etchings.