Landscape with Distant Buildings (Smaller Italian Sketchbook, leaf 28 recto)
Medium
Graphite, brush and brown, gray and yellow ink wash or watercolor
Dimensions
Sheet: 9 3/16 x 6 3/4 in. (23.4 x 17.1 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Rogers Fund, 1957
Accession Number
57.102.1(28)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the intimate world of Joseph Wright of's *Landscape with Distant Buildings a delicate sketch from his Smaller Italian Sketchbook (leaf28 recto), created around 1774–75. Wright, a leading English painter celebrated for his dramatic Enlightenment-era scenes of industry and science, embarked on the Grand Tour to Italy in 177375. This pocket-sized drawing (just 9 3/16 x 6 3/4 inches) captures his keen eye for the Italian countryside, with rolling hills and far-off buildings evoking the picturesque vistas that inspired countless British artists. Rendered in graphite with subtle brushwork...
About the Artist
Joseph Wright (Wright of Derby) · 1734–1797
Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797) was an English painter celebrated for his dramatic use of candlelight and artificial illumination, which earned him a unique position in eighteenth-century British art as the painter of the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment. Born in Derby in the English Midlands, he studied in London under Thomas Hudson, a leading portrait painter, before returning to D...