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Lot Essay
Sir Francis Watson's notes record: 'One from a set of over 600 which I discovered in a small bookshop off the Charing Cross Road in the 1960s. I tried to get Brinsley Ford to buy them with me but we neither of us felt we wanted as many as 300 of these charming drawings... The dealer wouldn't sell except as a set. Eventually they were bought by the dealer John Manning'. Watson had a particular interest in Carlo Labruzzi and was the first to publish in detail on the artist, in an article for The Antique Collector in June 1960 and in an essay which served as the introduction to John Manning's catalogue of the Colt Hoare drawings in 1960. The present drawing was presented by Manning to Watson in appreciation of his work on that introduction.
Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) of Stourhead in Wiltshire was a passionate traveller and a talented amateur artist, who embarked on the second of two extensive tours of the Continent in 1788. Part of this journey was devoted to following the Via Appia from Rome south through Italy to the point where it finished, near Brindisi in the heel of Italy, and Colt Hoare engaged Labruzzi as a travelling companion, so that he could record the classical monuments they saw along the way, rather in the way that a modern traveller would take photographs or buy postcards. The journey had to be abandoned when, shortly after they passed Minturno in Lazio, the road became impassable and soon afterwards Labruzzi fell seriously ill: Colt Hoare was forced to leave him in Naples when he returned to Rome. Colt Hoare himself made written notes on the monuments and inscriptions they had encountered, and he published an account of their journey in his Classical tour through Italy and Sicily (London, 1819). However, the grand illustrated volume which he had envisaged publishing, using Labruzzi's designs, was never realised. Twenty-four plates were issued during Colt Hoare's lifetime, but he lost enthusiasm for the project with the outbreak of the French Revolution and it remained incomplete.
Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838) of Stourhead in Wiltshire was a passionate traveller and a talented amateur artist, who embarked on the second of two extensive tours of the Continent in 1788. Part of this journey was devoted to following the Via Appia from Rome south through Italy to the point where it finished, near Brindisi in the heel of Italy, and Colt Hoare engaged Labruzzi as a travelling companion, so that he could record the classical monuments they saw along the way, rather in the way that a modern traveller would take photographs or buy postcards. The journey had to be abandoned when, shortly after they passed Minturno in Lazio, the road became impassable and soon afterwards Labruzzi fell seriously ill: Colt Hoare was forced to leave him in Naples when he returned to Rome. Colt Hoare himself made written notes on the monuments and inscriptions they had encountered, and he published an account of their journey in his Classical tour through Italy and Sicily (London, 1819). However, the grand illustrated volume which he had envisaged publishing, using Labruzzi's designs, was never realised. Twenty-four plates were issued during Colt Hoare's lifetime, but he lost enthusiasm for the project with the outbreak of the French Revolution and it remained incomplete.