The Lake of Albano and Castel Gandolfo

John Robert Cozens (1752-1797) was described by the artist John Constable as ‘the greatest genius that ever touched landscape’. Before Cozens, and his father Alexander Cozens (1717–1786), landscape painting with watercolours was mainly used for topography (accurately mapping landscapes). Father and son, Cozens and Cozens, revolutionised landscape art by painting with watercolour to create mystery and emotion in the places they depicted. Like many artists in the 1700s artists, John Robert travelled to Italy to sketch the landscape, accompanying noblemen on their ‘grand tour’ in search of the antiquities of the Greco-Roman world. This image depicts the thickly wooded cliff top, and the circular Lake of Albano with Castel Gandolfo (the summer residence of the Pope) perched on the rim of the volcanic crater to the right, located South East of Rome.