Lake Nemi, sunset

There are few sites in the Roman Campagna as redolent of history and classical mythology as Lake Nemi. Located in the Alban Hills, around thirty-five kilometres southeast of Rome, this spectacular lake is formed from a volcanic crater and derives its name from Nemus Dianae, meaning ‘sacred wood of Diana’. Diana was the Roman goddess of the hunt and, from the days of the early Roman Empire, pilgrims seeking to be healed of their sorrows and pains visited the temple dedicated to her, at the shore of the lake.

In the eighteenth century, British painters were drawn like pilgrims to the pristine views of the lake and its richly classical heritage. The versatile Joseph Wright of Derby, who was an accomplished portrait and view painter, made at least five versions of this veduta (view painting) in the early 1790s, some fifteen years after his Italian sojourn. The generally accurate rendering of the view, with the hill town of Nemi on the left and the silhouette of the town of Genzano to the right, suggests that Wright worked from a detailed preparatory drawing made during his stay in the area. Like many of his British contemporaries, he was probably influenced by Richard Wilson, who had drawn and painted many views of Lake Nemi. However, this panel displays Wright’s uniquely stark and uncluttered compositional manner. Broad bands of unmodulated tone, cast horizontally across the painted surface, create a windless atmosphere of tranquillity and reflection.

Text by Carl Villis from Painting and sculpture before 1800 in the international collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2003, p. 115.