Carlo Labruzzi On the Via Appia, 1789

Watercolour over pencil on laid paper 37.5 x 53 cm.; 14 3⁄4 x 20 3⁄4 inches

Frame size 60 x 74.5 cm; 23 5/8 x 29 1⁄4 inches

Provenance: Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd.

Exhibited: Lupton’s Gallery, Eton College, 27 May – 10 September 2009, no. 11
Labruzzi, the son of a weaver, studied at, and was later received into, the prestigious Accademia di San Luca, one of the few Italians in Rome who worked mainly as a landscape artist. His studio was one of those usually visited by British Grand Tourists and his work enjoyed contemporary popularity and commercial success.

He accompanied the antiquarian Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838), of Stourhead in Wiltshire, along the Via Appia from Rome to Brindisi in 1789, commissioned to sketch the monuments along the way. Bad weather and Labruzzi’s ill-health stopped the trip however, and the project was never completed, but he drew over two hundred and fifty views. His patron had intended to publish an account of the journey with prints and had the drawings bound in five volumes. Labruzzi made some more finished drawings in sepia, some modified for reproduction, and twenty-four plates etched by him were issued by Colt Hoare as 'Via Appia illustrate ab Urbe Romam ad Capuam', published in 1794 (see Timothy Clifford, 'Carlo Labruzzi the Grand Tour', 2012, Dickinson exhibition catalogue).