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View of Vesuvius

August 18 [1782]
Not on view
Cozens visited Italy for the second time in 1782-83, leaving England in May with the wealthy patron William Beckford, reaching Rome by early July, then continuing on to Naples to stay with the British consul Sir William Hamilton. The death of their host's wife shortly afterward prompted Beckford to move on to Switzerland, but Cozens remained in Naples to recover from a lingering fever. An inscription on this outline drawing of Vesuvius indicates that the view was made at Hamilton's villa at Portici on August 18, 1782.

The drawn squares on this sketch suggest that Cozens intended to work this composition into a more highly finished, large scale watercolor painting, but no such work survives. Instead, the sketch was translated into a more fully developed drawing in green and gray wash by Thomas Girtin and J.M.W Turner for Dr. Thomas Monro, a physician and arts patron who, during the late 1790s, employed the young artists to copy Cozens’s unfinished works and outline drawings. This so-called "Monro School" version of the sketch is now in the collection of Tate Britain, London.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: View of Vesuvius
  • Artist: John Robert Cozens (British, London 1752–1797 London)
  • Date: August 18 [1782]
  • Medium: Graphite
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 7 1/2 × 18 7/8 in. (19 × 48 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1907
  • Object Number: 07.282.4
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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Studies of Trees
John Robert Cozens
1770
Characters of Trees
John Robert Cozens
1789
View of the Villa Lante on the Janiculum in Rome, John Robert Cozens British, Brush and watercolor over traces of graphite
View of the Villa Lante on the Janiculum in Rome
John Robert Cozens
1782–83
On the Gulf of Salerno near Vietri, John Robert Cozens British, Brush and watercolor over faint traces of graphite
On the Gulf of Salerno near Vietri
John Robert Cozens
September 1782 or later
Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island, Northumberland, Thomas Girtin British, Watercolor and bodycolor (gouache)
Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island, Northumberland
Thomas Girtin
1796–97

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