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John Robert Cozens, 1752–1797, British, The Lake of Albano and Castel Gandolfo, between 1783 and 1785

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Creator:

John Robert Cozens, 1752–1797

Title:

The Lake of Albano and Castel Gandolfo

Date:

between 1783 and 1785

Medium:

Watercolor and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 17 x 24 3/8 inches (43.2 x 61.9 cm)

Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Watermark: J. Whatman.

Signed in pen and black ink lower left: "Cozens"

Credit Line:

Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Copyright Status:

Public Domain

Accession Number:

B1977.14.360

Classification:

Drawings & Watercolors

Collection:

Prints and Drawings

Subject Terms:

Associated Places:

Albano, Lago | Campagna | Castel Gandolfo | Italy

Access:

Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.

Link:

https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:8937

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John Robert Cozens returned from his first visit to Italy in the spring of 1779. Three year later made a second Italian tour, this time in the company of his father's pupil, patron, and friend William Beckford. Back in London in 1783, Cozens created finished watercolors for Beckford and other collectors based on sketches from his recent tour but also returning to the more striking and popular of his drawings for the earlier Italian visit. As did many other landscape painters ad draftsmen of the period (one thinks of Richard Wilson with his many repetitions of his paintings of Italy), Cozens produced numerous versions of his more popular compositions. The Lake of Albano and Castel Gandolfo was certainly one of the most popular, known in at least ten variants. The differences in tone and handling of the two versions in the Yale Center for British Art suggest that these watercolors date from different periods in the artist's life and stylistic evolution. Andrew Wilton has suggested that the darker, richer, more densely worked version (cat. 103) can be associated with Cozen's first visit to Italy, while the lighter, freer handling of cat. 104 reflects the artist's manner of working in the years following his second Italian trip. In both versions the Alban hills are given full weight and solidity by Cozen's technique of building form through the massing of delicate touches of subdued color. While Cozens's technical achievement was considerable and influential, it was also at the service of a sensibility that the great Romantic landscape painter John Constable described as "all poetry." The sense of light and atmosphere, as well as mystery and melancholy, that Cozens created in watercolors such as there se him apart from other contemporaries working in Italy, such as William Pars (cat. 100) or John "Warwick" Smith (cat. 74), and provided an important model for a younger generation of watercolorist, which included Thomas Girtin (cat. 143) and J.M.W. Turner (cat. 144).

Scott Wilcox

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 124 cat. no. 103

The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Papermaking and The Art of Watercolor in Eighteenth-Century Britain: Paul Sandby's "View of…Mr. Whatman's Turkey Mill" (Yale Center for British Art, 2006-02-22 - 2006-06-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Classic Ground - British Artists and the Landscape of Italy, 1740-1830 (Yale Center for British Art, 1981-07-29 - 1981-09-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-09-17 - 1980-11-16) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

English Landscape (Paul Mellon Collection) 1630-1850 (Yale Center for British Art, 1977-04-19 - 1977-07-17) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Timothy J. Barringer, Picturesque and sublime : Thomas Cole's trans-Atlantic inheritance, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2018, p. 109, fig. 68, NJ18 .C67 B37 2018 (YCBA) [YCBA]

C.F. (Charles Francis) Bell, The Drawings And Sketches of John Robert Cozens, A Catalogue With An Historical Introduction , Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 23, 1934-1935, p. 46, no. 147VI, N12 W35 A1 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Duncan Bull, Classic ground : British artists and the landscape of Italy, 1740-1830, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1981, pp.5, 6, 30, no. 16, ND1354.4 B85 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Theresa Fairbanks-Harris, Papermaking and the art of watercolor in eighteenth-century Britain, Paul Sandby and the Whatman Paper Mill , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2006, pp. 12, 13, figs. 8 and 9, NJ18.Sa56 A15 V5 2006 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Maria Delores Sanchez-Jauregul, The English prize, the capture of the Westmorland, an episode of the grand tour , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2012, pp. 122, 123, fig. 78, N9135 .E54 2012 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Christopher White, English landscape, 1630-1850, drawings, prints & books from the Paul Mellon Collection , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1977, p. 45, no. 72, pl. LXXXVIII, NC228 W45 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Whitworth Art Gallery, Watercolours by John Robert Cozens : Whitworth Art Gallery / 6 March to 12 April 1971 : Victoria and Albert Museum / 22 April to 16 May 1971, Wilmslow, Cheshire, 1971, p. 19, NJ18 .C832 W45 (LC) (YCBA) [OCLC]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, pp. 124-5, no. 104, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Andrew Wilton, The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 12, 50, no. 134, pl. 37, NJ18 C83 W55 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

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