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Lot Essay
This is one of a group of five roundels that appear to date from circa 1776, very early in Cozens career and at a time when the possible fusion of landscape and history painting was becoming increasingly apparent to him. The main evidence in support of this early date is the fact that in 1776 Cozens exhibited at the Royal Academy an oil painting entitled 'Hannibal in his March over the Alps, showing his army the fertile plains of Italy'. This is now lost, but it seems likely that the present watercolour is a related and near-contemporaneous work, probably a watercolour version rather than a preliminary study.
In 1776, however, Cozens had never set eyes on the Alps (he left for Switzerland at the end of the year) and the painting might be regarded as something of an imaginative feat. Although Andrew Wilton has remarked that it 'displays in remarkably complete form the style [Cozens] is supposed to have evolved specifically in response to his experience of the Alps' (A. Wilton loc.cit.), although Kim Sloan points out that Cozens had sketched some rock formations closer to home - in the Peak District.
Cozens could also have drawn on ideas from his father's work, and Wilton is particularly impressed by the resemblance of the five roundels to the work of Alexander Cozens, exploring as they do 'the abstact shapes made by weird rocks as they meet and divide to form chasms and chimneys filled by water and flames.' This description is more obviously applicable to the two roundels showing Milton's Satan in a cavernous hell, and to that of A figure on the edge of an inferno than to the quieter, colder painting of Hannibal and his army. Yet this too has its abstract shapes, its vertiginous rift between the foreground and the distance.
The moment depicted is one related by Livy, in which Hannibal tries to bolster the morale of his flagging troops by pointing out Italy and the Po Valley far beyond the foothills beneath them. Hannibal's army was in ruins and about to struggle on towards defeat. Kim Sloan suggests that Cozens intended the scene to carry some reference to Britain's Imperial war against American colonies. Indeed it is possible that all five roundels have political significance, and that the two watercolours relating to watercolours present an heroic rebel - the figure of the American uprisers.
Whether or not this was Cozens' intention he was among the first artist to draw on the story of Hannibal. The oil version of the subject reputedly had a profound effect on Turner who, according to C.R. Leslie, 'spoke of it as a work from which he had learned more than anything he had then seen.'. Turner was, of course, to depict Hannibal in one of his most dramatic works, Hannibal and his army Crossing the Alps.
In 1776, however, Cozens had never set eyes on the Alps (he left for Switzerland at the end of the year) and the painting might be regarded as something of an imaginative feat. Although Andrew Wilton has remarked that it 'displays in remarkably complete form the style [Cozens] is supposed to have evolved specifically in response to his experience of the Alps' (A. Wilton loc.cit.), although Kim Sloan points out that Cozens had sketched some rock formations closer to home - in the Peak District.
Cozens could also have drawn on ideas from his father's work, and Wilton is particularly impressed by the resemblance of the five roundels to the work of Alexander Cozens, exploring as they do 'the abstact shapes made by weird rocks as they meet and divide to form chasms and chimneys filled by water and flames.' This description is more obviously applicable to the two roundels showing Milton's Satan in a cavernous hell, and to that of A figure on the edge of an inferno than to the quieter, colder painting of Hannibal and his army. Yet this too has its abstract shapes, its vertiginous rift between the foreground and the distance.
The moment depicted is one related by Livy, in which Hannibal tries to bolster the morale of his flagging troops by pointing out Italy and the Po Valley far beyond the foothills beneath them. Hannibal's army was in ruins and about to struggle on towards defeat. Kim Sloan suggests that Cozens intended the scene to carry some reference to Britain's Imperial war against American colonies. Indeed it is possible that all five roundels have political significance, and that the two watercolours relating to watercolours present an heroic rebel - the figure of the American uprisers.
Whether or not this was Cozens' intention he was among the first artist to draw on the story of Hannibal. The oil version of the subject reputedly had a profound effect on Turner who, according to C.R. Leslie, 'spoke of it as a work from which he had learned more than anything he had then seen.'. Turner was, of course, to depict Hannibal in one of his most dramatic works, Hannibal and his army Crossing the Alps.