Cantate: Trompe l'Oeil of Posted Prints

Martin Cerulli · 1735/1765

Medium

Pen and black ink with brush and watercolor and gouache, on ivory laid paper

Original size

30.7 × 24 cm (12 1/8 × 9 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

Cerulli's *Cantate* is a masterclass in visual deception — a sheet of posted prints rendered so convincingly that the eye struggles to accept it as art rather than the real thing. Martin Cerulli worked in the trompe l'oeil tradition that captivated European collectors throughout the eighteenth century, creating compositions designed to fool the viewer into believing they were looking at actual objects pinned to a board or wall. Working with pen and black ink alongside watercolor and gouache on laid paper, he achieved a remarkable range of tone and texture — the crisp curl of a printed edge, the shadow cast by an overlapping sheet — all without the relief of paint applied thickly in oils. The musical subject matter, cantate referring to vocal compositions, places this work within a cultured, salon-oriented milieu where such witty illusions were prized as much for their intellectual playfulness as their technical virtuosity. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this work as part of its drawings collection, a reminder that trompe l'oeil was not confined to large-scale painted panels but thrived equally in intimate works on paper. A hand-painted oil reproduction brings Cerulli's illusionistic game into a new medium, translating his precise draughtsmanship and subtle wash into the richer depth of oil on canvas while preserving every carefully observed shadow and layered print.