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Lot Essay
Cozens first journeyed across the Alps in 1776 with Richard Payne Knight (1751-1824), a classical scholar and antiquarian who had made his first Grand Tour in 1772-3. Their trip across Europe took them from Geneva southeast through Sallanches to Chamonix, then over the Col de Montets to Martigny, Bex, and Aigle, before heading over the mountains to Interlaken and Spiez. They then went on to Lake Lucerne via Unterwalden and Engelberg, before travelling to Italy, through the Splügen Pass, arriving in Rome, via Como, in November 1776. Their travels are recorded in the body of sketches Cozens made, now largely in the British Museum.
The drawings which Cozens made during this passage through the Alps between Sallanches and Chamonix are some of the most dramatic and expansive of the journey. The present work is based on a pencil sketch made for Payne Knight, now in the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. Executed in 1778, while the two men were still in Rome, it has traditionally been thought that this watercolour was also made for Payne Knight. Cozens worked up a number of his sketches from the trip into large scale watercolours such as the present work, while he was still in Rome, and examples can be found in the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Yale Center for British Art. Another less finished, but similar sized, version of this subject was executed in 1779 and was in the collection of Victor Reinaecker and subsequently appeared in the sale of the celebrated Newall collection in these Rooms, 13 December 1979, lot 22.
Payne Knight was fascinated by the sublime and the emotional effect it produced on the viewer. He believed that these effects were best achieved through great landscape painting and the favouring of colour and light over line and form, and in Cozens he found the perfect match for his ideas. Inspired by his father Alexander Cozens' theories of landscape construction and the passions aroused by different landscapes, Cozens was unafraid to break conventions of composition in his quest to capture the grandeur and emotion of mountain landscapes. While he often removed picture planes or horizon lines in his exploration of atmosphere, the sense of depth in the present drawing has been created by the tree in the left foreground cutting across the most distant mountain peaks. The diminutive figures seated with their herd of goats give a sense of the scale of the landscape, while the dead tree to the right of the composition serves as a reminder of the inhospitable nature of this beautiful landscape in the winter months. The purposeful nature of this device is evidenced by the contrast that can be made with the healthy tree shown in the original sketch upon which this work is based. The limited palette with its blue-grey tonality is typical of this period, particularly of the drawings executed for Payne Knight.
This drawing was previously in the collection of Alexander J. Finberg (1866-1939), the celebrated critic, co-founder of the Walpole Society and renowned scholar of the work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A.
The drawings which Cozens made during this passage through the Alps between Sallanches and Chamonix are some of the most dramatic and expansive of the journey. The present work is based on a pencil sketch made for Payne Knight, now in the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester. Executed in 1778, while the two men were still in Rome, it has traditionally been thought that this watercolour was also made for Payne Knight. Cozens worked up a number of his sketches from the trip into large scale watercolours such as the present work, while he was still in Rome, and examples can be found in the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the Yale Center for British Art. Another less finished, but similar sized, version of this subject was executed in 1779 and was in the collection of Victor Reinaecker and subsequently appeared in the sale of the celebrated Newall collection in these Rooms, 13 December 1979, lot 22.
Payne Knight was fascinated by the sublime and the emotional effect it produced on the viewer. He believed that these effects were best achieved through great landscape painting and the favouring of colour and light over line and form, and in Cozens he found the perfect match for his ideas. Inspired by his father Alexander Cozens' theories of landscape construction and the passions aroused by different landscapes, Cozens was unafraid to break conventions of composition in his quest to capture the grandeur and emotion of mountain landscapes. While he often removed picture planes or horizon lines in his exploration of atmosphere, the sense of depth in the present drawing has been created by the tree in the left foreground cutting across the most distant mountain peaks. The diminutive figures seated with their herd of goats give a sense of the scale of the landscape, while the dead tree to the right of the composition serves as a reminder of the inhospitable nature of this beautiful landscape in the winter months. The purposeful nature of this device is evidenced by the contrast that can be made with the healthy tree shown in the original sketch upon which this work is based. The limited palette with its blue-grey tonality is typical of this period, particularly of the drawings executed for Payne Knight.
This drawing was previously in the collection of Alexander J. Finberg (1866-1939), the celebrated critic, co-founder of the Walpole Society and renowned scholar of the work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A.