Inventor of Greek Figures, Plate 10

Wealthy Europeans loved decorating their homes with Greek-style vases and columns, even if they didn’t quite get the look right.

You see a man posing like an ancient Greek statue, dressed in fancy robes and holding a scroll.

This print pokes fun at the 18th-century craze for all things Greek. Wealthy Europeans loved decorating their homes with Greek-style vases and columns, even if they didn’t quite get the look right. The artist based this on a drawing of a real architect showing off his own "Greek" outfit, more costume than classic.

If you like this playful take on history, look up Italy, 18th century for more over-the-top fashions.

Poking fun at the vogue for classical antiquities that gripped Enlightenment Europe, French architect Ennemond Alexandre Petitot portrayed himself as an elaborately dressed Greek statue in a drawing on which this print is likely based. The popularization of classical elements and motifs in fine and decorative arts during this period was known as the goût grec, or "Greek taste." Revered for its perceived simplicity and grandeur, ancient Greek art was believed to reflect the physical health and moral character of that civilization.

Here reproduced by engraver Benigno Bossi, Petitot’s design whimsically parodies the artist and his time, transforming the elegance and sobriety of classical Greece into the excess and extravagance of the 1700s.