These small-scale, portable works, most commonly executed in gouache, were produced by local Italian artists for a foreign market of Grand Tour travellers, eager to return home with souvenirs.
The vedute style—a landscape or city view that is largely topographical—had its origins in the 18th-century work of Canaletto and Luca Carlevaris in Venice. Their grand and intricate compositions reflected the 'stage-set'-like quality of the buildings of Venice, and—whilst seemingly topographically accurate—they would distort and manipulate views to suit their pictorial ends. The more modest and affordable works serving the souvenir market such as these gouaches also embody this element of staging, aptly using a degree of artistic licence to capture the awe-inspiring—and almost unbelievable—sites of the Italian Grand Tour.
The iconic monuments of Italy's ancient cities were brought brilliantly to life through the use of vivid opaque colour, intricately applied, sometimes painted over line etchings to achieve particularly fine architectural detail. Drama is provided by small figures—often characters in local dress or tourist onlookers echoing our own position as viewer. Popular subjects were the Forum in Rome, ruined temples at Pompeii and Paestum, the Duomo of Florence, and the spectacular eruptions of Vesuvius. These subjects were a particular draw for British travellers—the largest market for Italian vedute—given 19th-century interests in antiquity and Romantic tastes for mystery and mythology. Crystallised in miniature with such vibrancy, these remarkable Grand Tour sites could become tangible keepsakes to take home and treasure.
