Bridge of Salaro
Medium
Etching on paper
Dimensions
Image: 24.5 × 35.6 cm (9 11/16 × 14 1/16 in.); Plate: 28 × 38 cm (11 1/16 × 15 in.); Sheet: 32.9 × 45.2 cm (13 × 17 13/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
153611
Art Historical Context
### Bridge of Salaro Visitors to the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints Drawings department will discover *Bridge of Salaro* (1793), a delicate etching on paper by German artist Jacob Wilhelm Mechau1746–1808). Measuring 24.5 × 35.6 cm in its image area, this work captures a picturesque Roman countryside scene, likely featuring the ancient Ponte Salaro Frascati, Italy—a site beloved by 18th-century on the Grand Tour. Mech, who settled in Rome in 1784 after training in Düsseldorf and Kassel, specialized in such landscapes, blending precise observation with a sense of timeless natural beauty. As...
About the Artist
Jacob Wilhelm Mechau · 1745–1808
Jacob Wilhelm Mechau (1745–1808) was a German painter and draughtsman who became one of the more distinctive landscape artists working in Rome during the late eighteenth century. Born in Dresden in 1745, Mechau received his early artistic education in the rich environment of that city's court culture, which placed a high premium on classical training and technical refinement. He later made his way...