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Artist or Maker: John Robert Cozens (London 1752-1799)

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Provenance: Purchased from Mendelssohn, 28 March 1919 (£1).

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Exhibited: London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Drawings by John Robert Cozens, 1923, no. 49, pl. XXVI.
Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, Early English Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of Paul Oppé, 1952, no. 14.
London, Royal Academy, European Masters of the 18th Century, 1954-55, no. 520.
Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, Watercolours and Drawings by Alexander Cozens and John Robert Cozens, 1956, no. 47.
London, Royal Academy, The Paul Oppé Collection, 1958, no. 77.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, and Vienna, Albertina, English Watercolours of the 18th Century, 1965, no. 32.
Manchester, Whitworth Art Gallery, and London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1971, Watercolours by John Robert Cozens, no. 37.

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Literature: T. Ashby, 'Topographical notes on Cozens', The Burlington Magazine, October 1924, p. 193.
C.F. Bell and T. Girtin, 'The Drawings and Sketches of John Robert Cozens: A Catalogue with an Historical Introduction', The Walpole Society, XXIII, (1935) (reprinted London, 1969), no. 154 III, pl. XVa.
A.P. Oppé, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, London, 1952, p. 138, pl. 34.
I.A. Williams, Early English Watercolours, London, 1952, p. 81.
M. Hardie, Watercolour Painting in Britain, I, The Eighteenth Century, London, 1966, p. 138.
A. Wilton, The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens, exhib. cat., New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, 1980, under no. 92.
K. Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens: The Poetry of Landscape, exhib. cat., London, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Ontario, Art Gallery, 1986-87, p. 132.

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Notes: BRITAIN

'From our house to Albano the road runs through a bird-cage walk of about a mile, shaded by the largest, the oldest and the most venerable oaks, as well as chestnuts, that I ever saw. Under the branches of these patrician trees one frequently discovers the principal buildings of Rome, and especially the numerous ruins of ancient ones that fill the immense plane between this place and the city. In short a more romantic spot cannot be seen.'

Frederick Augustus Hervey, 4th Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry (1730-1803), to his daughter Mrs Foster, later Elizabeth, Duchess of Devonshire, 29 May 1779 (quoted in A.P. Oppé, op. cit., p. 135, note 1.

As Paul Oppé noted in his magisterial book on the artist and his father, the result of a lifetime of study, J.R. Cozens' contemporaries considered this view over the Roman Campagna to be the most romantic in the world. It is therefore unsuprising that the view was one of Cozens' favourites, one which particularly associated with him and which he painted numerous times from at least four viewpoints. Views similar to the present watercolour are in the Williamson Art Gallery, Birkenhead, and formerly in the collection of George Goyder (sold in these Rooms, 3 June 2004, lot 68).

Cozens made two trips to Italy, the first in 1776-78 in the company of the collector and connoisseur Richard Payne Knight, and the second in 1782-83. These large finished watercolour views would have been worked up in the studio in Italy or later in England from the brief pencil sketches or wash drawings made while in Rome. Each new approach to the composition was accompanied by new ideas. Although the present watercolour would seem superficially to be preliminary to the drawing sold in these Rooms in 2004, closer inspection reveals a different purpose. In describing his drawing, Paul Oppé notes that by this stage in his development Cozens had 'discarded the leaning pine of convention, [and] left the foremost branches of the ilex dead and bare, to crane over the broken flatness of the Campagna towards the distant sea, with a suggestion of the melancholy which attends the beauty of the departing day' (A.P. Oppé, op. cit., pp. 138-139).

The Galleria di Sopra, running along the south-western brim of the volcanic crater in which Lake Albano lies, was built by Pope Urban VIII to link his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo with the town of Albano. The name Galleria refers to the tunnels created by the rows of trees planted on either side of each road. The Pope created several viewpoints along these routes where travellers could admire the vistas of Lake Albano and the surrounding landscape.

END OF SALE

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