Trompe l'Oeil of Posted Notices and Prints

Martin Cerulli · 1735/1765

Medium

Pen and black ink with brush and watercolor and gouache, over traces of graphite, on ivory laid paper

Original size

30.6 × 23.9 cm (12 1/16 × 9 7/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

Few artistic tricks demand as much from a viewer as a well-executed trompe l'oeil, and Cerulli's depiction of pinned notices and printed sheets achieves exactly that unsettling moment of doubt — paper that isn't paper, shadow that isn't cast. Working in the mid-eighteenth century, Cerulli used a meticulous combination of pen and black ink, watercolor, and gouache over faint graphite underdrawing to simulate the creases, curling edges, and varying opacity of layered documents. The ivory laid paper beneath adds a further layer of authenticity, its texture lending the finished surface the weight of something genuinely archival. Trompe l'oeil works of this type — depicting letter racks, pinboards, and posted notices — were a fashionable demonstration of virtuosity in eighteenth-century Europe, prized precisely because they forced collectors to question what they were looking at. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this sheet as a prime example of the genre's capacity to blur the line between representation and reality. The hand-painted oil reproduction translates Cerulli's original precision into a format built to last, preserving the layered shadows and subtle paper textures that give the composition its quiet, convincing power.