Anon. Vesuvius in Eruption

An original early 19th-century watercolour painting Vesuvius in Eruption.

A beautiful miniature Italian landscape by an unknown hand. Although the artist is unidentified, this was evidently someone of considerable talent, working in a style that was innovative for its time. Technicolour skies convey the dramatic eruption, whilst the diminutive town is silhouetted along the bay.

This painting is one of a collection by the artist, some of which are particularly loose and impressionistic in technique: a virtuoso interpretation of Alexander Cozens's (1717–1786) radical blot method, whereby pupils were encouraged to compose their own imaginary 'poetic' drawings based on marks made in ink and watercolour. John Varley studied Cozens's drawings and from the 1830s also produced many small, imaginary landscape sketches in the blot method.

Provenance: from an album of watercolours by the same hand gifted to Agnes Minna Pearson (b.1834) by 'the adorable authoress née Lister'. Glue marks on the back of the watercolours indicate that they were previously mounted in another earlier album. One of the watercolours bears the watermark Turkey Mill Kent, possibly dating that paper to around 1819.

In watercolour with brown ink. The corners of the paper are clipped as shown. Please note the small size of this artwork.