Pen and black ink, watercolor, graphite, gray wash and brown wash on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper mounted on moderately thick, smooth, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Mount: 12 15/16 x 17 11/16 inches (32.8 x 45 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in graphite, lower left on mount: "JOHN ROBERT COZENS: THE AIGULLE VERTE | (65/9/14/2)(PM2156)"; Inscribed in graphite, lower right on mount: "BETWEEN CHAMONIX AND MARTIGNY"; inscribed in black ink, upper right on back: "Savoy | 8"; inscribed in black ink, upper left to upper center on back: "Between Chamounix & Martinach [sic] | August 30-1776 | No. 16"; inscribed in graphite, lower left on back: "(65/9/14/2) | (PM 2156)"; inscribed in graphite, lower right on back: "3758"; inscribed in graphite, lower right on back: "COZENS, John Robert | The Aiquille Verte"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.4.1103
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
clouds | rocks (landforms) | landscape | mountain range | peak | geology | pine | ice | snow | travel | height | weather | gray | monochrome | hills | mountains | trees | Grand Tour
Associated Places:
Europe | Alps | France | Martigny-les-Bains | Chamonix-Mont-Blanc
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)The Beautiful, The Sublime, and The Picturesque (Washington University Gallery of Art, 1984-02-19 - 1984-04-08)The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-09-17 - 1980-11-16)
Publications:
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British watercolour drawings in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Victoria, BC, 1971, p. 2, no. 9, ND1928 .A76 1971 (LC) (YCBA)C.F. (Charles Francis) Bell, The Drawings And Sketches of John Robert Cozens, A Catalogue With An Historical Introduction , Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 23, 1934-1935, p. 28, no. 8, pl. Ib, N12 W35 A1 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)Burlington Fine Arts Club, Catalogue of a collection of drawings by John Robert Cozens with some decorative furniture and other objects of art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1923, p. 31, no. 39, pl. XXI, NJ18 .C832 B87 1923 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of the Herbert Horne collection of drawings, with special reference to the works of Alexander Cozens, with some decorative furniture and other objects of art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1916, p. 30, no. 70, N5055 .B9 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)Louis Hawes, Presences of Nature : British Landscape, 1780-1830, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1982, pp. 6-7, 114, pl. 4, ND1354.4 H38 (YCBA)David H. Solkin, Art in Britain 1660-1815, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2015, pp. 229-30, 332, fig. 232, N6766 S65 2015 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Washington University Gallery of Art, The beautiful, the sublime, and the picturesque : British influences on American landscape painting, St. Louis, 1984, pp. 21-22, 64-65, no. 36, ND1351 .B42 (LC) (YCBA)Whitworth Art Gallery, Watercolours by John Robert Cozens : Whitworth Art Gallery / 6 March to 12 April 1971 : Victoria and Albert Museum / 22 April to 16 May 1971, Wilmslow, Cheshire, 1971, pp. 13, 40, no. 1, NJ18 .C832 W45 (LC) (YCBA)Andrew Wilton, The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 11, 39, no. 87, pl. 33, NJ18 C83 W55 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Yale Center for British Art, Great British watercolors : from the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, pp. 46-47, no. 17, ND1928 .Y35 2007 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
John Robert Cozens was the greatest watercolor painter before Thomas Girtin and J. M. W. Turner. Trained by his father, Alexander, Cozens grew up accustomed to the idea that landscape paintings could be deeply expressive. In 1776 he accompanied the connoisseur and collector Richard Payne Knight on a grand tour. Their route to Rome took them through Switzerland, where Cozens made sketches that formed the basis of a suite of watercolors of the sublime mountain scenery. Still heavily indebted to his father’s style in their monochrome palette and taste for awesome prospects, Cozens’s early works were eagerly sought after by connoisseurs who commissioned replicas of these drawings made for Knight. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)