Lot Essay
The Grotto of Posillipo and Roman Ruins on the Palatine were popular subjects for plein air sketches from the end of the eighteenth century onwards. The recent exhibition A Brush With Nature: The Gere Collection of Landscape Oil Sketches at the National Gallery, London, featured work by the Welsh artist Thomas Jones (1742-1803) of the Grotto (cat. no.43), and a sketch by Lord Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) of an archway on the Palatine (cat. no.48).