Quadro riportato

Quadri riportati ("transported paintings") is the Italian phrase for "carried picture". It is used in art to describe gold-framed easel paintings or framed paintings that are seen in a normal perspective and painted into a fresco. The final effect is similar to Illusionism, but the latter encompasses painted statues, reliefs and tapestries.

The ceiling is intended to look as if a framed painting has been placed overhead; there is no illusionistic foreshortening, figures appearing as if they were to be viewed at normal eye level. Mengs' Parnassus (1761) in the Villa Albani (now Villa Torlonia) is a famous example— a Neoclassical criticism against Baroque illusionism. Often, however, quadri riportati were combined with illusionistic elements, as in Annibale Carracci's Farnese Ceiling (1597–1600) in Rome.