• Framed black and white artwork on a beige wall
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Gallery Curiosities

Imaginary Prisons: Plate II — The Central Wheels

Imaginary Prisons: Plate II — The Central Wheels

$39.00
$39.00
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Be among the first. This piece is newly listed, with no reviews yet, by design. We will not invent them. What we promise instead is below.

Produced to order · dispatched in 3–5 business days · tracked delivery

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Arrives right, or we remake it
If your piece arrives damaged, or the colour is wrong, we reprint and reship it. That failure is ours, not yours. Damage and colour only, not change of mind.
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Real paper, not a screen promise
Printed on true fine-art archival stock, Hahnemühle and Enhanced Matte. The substrate is named on every listing, never hidden.
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Curated and prepared in-house, produced to order
Every piece is selected and prepared in our studio, then produced to order on archival stock by our print partner. Nothing sits in a warehouse.

Source: Archival reproduction from Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Imaginary Prisons series.

Plate II, The Central Wheels is built around monumental stone machinery, circular forms, and layered architectural shadow. The image reads as both structure and mechanism, with enough complexity to hold close looking.

It belongs in rooms that can carry something darker, older, and more architectural: studies, offices, libraries, and gallery walls with weight.

Pairs naturally with the other Imaginary Prisons plates and with studio-composed architectural pieces in the Archive.

Heather's Note

The machinery in this plate is architectural in scale but has no obvious function, which is part of what makes Piranesi's Prisons strange and lasting. He drew structures that feel engineered but resist explanation. The circular forms here give the composition a different kind of weight than the staircases: more mechanical, more deliberate, and somehow more unsettling for it. It is a strong piece for walls that can hold something with a little gravity.

— Heather

Details

Fine art print, produced to order
Printed on Enhanced Matte Art Paper or Hahnemühle German Etching, depending on selected variant
Matte finish on both substrates
Framed and unframed options available on select sizes
Each print is made individually — allow 3–5 business days for production before shipping

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A 5 by 7 inch matte print from the archive, framed and resting on antique books
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The part a screen cannot show

You are paying for the paper.
Here is the paper.

Photographed close, by the studio that prints them.
Close photograph of Hahnemuhle German Etching paper texture
Hahnemühle German Etching
A true fine-art cotton rag with a velvety, pronounced tooth. Heavyweight, deckled presence, reads as a drawing. For the pieces that want to be felt as much as seen.
Close photograph of Enhanced Matte Art paper texture
Enhanced Matte Art
A smooth, museum-matte surface with clean, even ink hold. Quieter than the rag, it lets colour and detail sit flat and precise. For the pieces that want to sit still.
Fade-resistant archival pigment inks. The colour you see is the colour in ten years.
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What we stand behind instead of reviews

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The remake promise
Arrives damaged or the colour is off? We reprint and reship. No return trip to the post office. Damage and colour only.
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A stated maker
Curated and prepared in-house, produced to order on archival stock. A studio with an eye, not an anonymous pipeline.
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Proof you can see
The actual paper, photographed close. The price is the paper, so we show you the paper.
We could buy a reviews app and seed it tonight. We will not. A brand built on the eye behind it does not get to fake the proof. So we are asking you to be among the first, and giving you every honest reason to feel safe doing it.