Watercolor and graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 8 1/4 x 11 7/8 inches (21 x 30.2 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.4.1482
Gallery Label:
One of Cozens's patrons was the wealthy young connoisseur William Beckford, a pupil of Alexander Cozens. He began commissioning replicas of Cozens's Swiss and Italian views in the early 1780s, and this view of Lake Nemi outside Rome once formed part of Beckford's collection. Instead of representing the lake in a balanced classical composition, Cozens takes his view from the lake itself, looking up the steep cliffs to the village of Nemi. Here the crater's sloping side becomes an imposing rocky crag with the medieval castle and village skyline adapted to give it more variety and visual interest. A turbulent cloudy sky completes the transformation of the lake from the archetypically beautiful into the sublime. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)