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The Temple of Sibyl

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Artist

John Warwick Smith (1749-1831)

Collection

Guy Peppiatt Fine Art

Description

Watercolour over pencil. Tivoli stands dramatically on the lower slopes of the Sabine hills about fifteen miles east of Rome. It was a popular summer retreat during Imperial times and its beautiful scenery attracted Northern European artists from the seventeenth century onwards. All British artists in the eighteenth century from Richards Wilson onwards visited and painted at Tivoli. `Warwick’ Smith here depicts the circular Temple of Sibyl which stands at the north-east corner of the town. Below thunders the `Cascatelle’ or Grand Cascade of the river Aniene, spray from which Smith depicts.

A close-up view of the temple by `Warwick’ Smith is in the Tate Gallery (ex-Oppé collection) and a view from another angle is in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. A watercolour of the Villa Maecenas, Tivoli showing the Cascatelle is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Francis Hawcroft, Travels in Italy 1776-1783, 1988, p.52-53, no. 56, ill.).

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Image Credit

Location

Tivoli, Lazio, Italy

Country

Italy

Medium

Watercolour