Lot 15: John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)

Castel Gondolfo, the lake of Albano, Italy
signed and dated 'Jn o Cozens 1780' (lower centre, overmounted) and with inscription 'Castel Gondolfo, on the Lake of Albano.' (on the reverse of the backing sheet) and further inscribed 'Castel Gondolfo/the Lake of Albano' (on the backboard)
pencil and watercolour, watermark 'J WHATMAN'
14 1/4 x 20 3/4 in. (36.2 x 52.7 cm.)

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

John Robert Cozens is one of the greatest names in the history of watercolour. The son of the highly original drawing-master Alexander Cozens, inventor of the 'Blot' technique of developing landscape compositions, John Robert learned from his father the expressive power of restraint, both of colour and of line. His work, especially that inspired by the landscape of the Alps and Italy ranks among the supreme statements of rapt inwardness in front of grand nature. John Robert was temperamentally fragile, an often idle, melancholic man who ended his days in the care of Dr Thomas Monro, the well-known amateur artist, collector and insane doctor who attended George III and J.M.W. Turner's mother.

In 1776 he embarked on his first tour of the Continent, travelling with the collector and connoisseur Richard Payne Knight through Switzerland to Italy. He spent the next two years working in Rome and the surrounding Campagna, collecting material that was to be a source of inspiration for the rest of his life, though he was to make a second and equally important trip to Italy in 1782-3 (see lot 39). While still in Italy with Payne Knight, he began a stream of finished, often large watercolours to which he added steadily after his return to England. He would repeat subjects on commission for his patrons, and certain themes recur with a persistence that suggests a strong personal affection for them. The Galleria di Sopra above Lake Albano is one of these, with at least fifteen variants of two different subjects, one that includes the view across Lake Albano and one devoted to the tree-lined Galleria itself. The present drawing is a previously uncatalogued addition to the list of about ten recorded examples showing the lake from the Galleria, and adds substantially to the repertoire of Cozens's responses to the view. Other versions of this watercolour are in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The Galleria di Sopra is a road running along the south-western brim of the volcanic crater in which Lake Albano lies; Cozens' viewpoint looks out northwards across the water to the Papal summer palace at Castel Gondolfo, which presents an imposing silhouette on a far promontory: the palace itself was designed by Carlo Maderna, with the dome of Gianlorenzo Bernini's church resing grandly above it. But in these views the palace is always subordinate to the trees that arch over the road, the natural attendants of that magical walk above the lake. Cozens was fascinated by the way in which they create a natural framing device or repoussoir for a composition that is deliberately reminiscent of the landscapes of Claude Lorrain.

But the suggestion of Claude was for Cozens a challenge rather than a convenient formula. The most striking aspect of the Galleria di Sopra watercolours is the imaginative way in which the arching pine and ilex trees are cast and recast in innumerable conformations as protagonists of an arcadian idyll. Francis Hawcroft has pointed out that 'sometimes the mass of trees becomes sombre and threatening, at other times less mysterious and sometimes more decorative,' and A.P. Oppé, in his classic work on the two Cozenses, speaks of John Robert's love of 'the play of light on, and through, the masses or drifts of foliage'. Cozens does not omit human figures that enhance the pastoral mood- a goatherd chasing the flock or, as here, taking a moment of leisure to point out the view in admiration to a friend. But if these local characters bring to mind the rusticity of Virgil, they serve primarily to emphasize the grandeur of nature itself: the stillness, the translucency of the atmosphere, the delicacy of the greens and blues of foliage and water, filtered as they are by the soft enveloping light. And in this example the trees themselves take on a protective bulk which gives promise of shade while providing a picturesque contrast with the delicate boughs that arch over the path from behind.

All these qualities are exquisitely rendered in Cozens' by now mature style. The drawing is signed and dated to the year after his arrival back in England, 1780, and his experience of the mountains of Switzerland and of the open landscapes and warm light of Italy had stimulated him to refine his technique to the point at which it could evoke the exhilarating space of grand panoramas, working with a gamut of subtly varied touches of the brush, from the dense accumulation of strokes for foreground masses to the evanescent washes that describe melting distances. It was this technical virtuosity that would inspire the coming generation of Romantic watercolourists, notably Girtin and Turner, in their search for a fully expressive landscape art.

We are grateful to Andrew Wilton for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.