The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of December 13, 2025
Subterranean Jail for the Stage
1788
(German, 1754–1826)
Image: 40.9 x 56.6 cm (16 1/8 x 22 5/16 in.); Platemark: 49 x 63 cm (19 5/16 x 24 13/16 in.); Sheet: 54.2 x 71.2 cm (21 5/16 x 28 1/16 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 2003.23
Catalogue raisonné: Nagler 16 (?)
Location: Not on view
Did You Know?
Since none of his stage sets survive, Abel Schlicht’s prints serve as records of his lost designs.Description
Trained as an architect, Abel Schlicht also designed stage sets for the Mannheim National Theater. An important forum for German cultural identity, the theater was one of the first companies to produce exclusively German-language plays, including those by beloved playwright Friedrich Schiller. Prisons were an especially popular drama subject in the 1700s, and sets would have featured in multiple productions. Here, Schlicht employed aquatint to render the gloomy space of one of his prison scenes. This technique enabled the artist to create the range of tones used to illuminate the background and plunge the foreground into darkness.- Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
- {{cite web|title=Subterranean Jail for the Stage|url=false|author=Abel Schlicht|year=1788|access-date=13 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2003.23