Near Chiavenna in the Grisons - YCBA Collections Search

John Robert Cozens, 1752–1797, British, Near Chiavenna in the Grisons, ca. 1779

Creator:: John Robert Cozens, 1752–1797, British
Title:: Near Chiavenna in the Grisons
Former Title(s):: Felsen Landschaft in der Naehe von
Date:: ca. 1779
Medium:: Watercolor, black ink, graphite and gray wash on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:: Sheet: 16 3/4 x 24 1/2 inches (42.5 x 62.2 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:: Inscribed on back in graphite upper left: "9 9 4 6 | Mount AEtna from Grotta del Capro (underlined) | ( S < . . . > inde B.7.8) | te; in graphite center: "< 910 3-13 >"; in graphite lower center: "J.R. COZENS : NEAR CHIAVENNA"
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1977.14.4634
Classification:: Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:: Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:: clouds | fires | Grand Tour | landscape | mountains | people | rocks (landforms)
Associated Places:: Campagna | Chiavenna | Grisons | Italy
Access:: View by request in the Study Room [Request]
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Link:: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:9171
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IIIF Manifest:: JSON

For many Grand Tourists the trip across the Alps provided a sublime prelude to the civilized pleasures of Italy. In 1776 John Robert Cozens crossed the Alps and traveled in Italy with the connoisseur, collector, and classical scholar Richard Payne Knight. Payne Knight was an aficionado of sublimity in landscape, who would later make his own significant contributions to the growing body of literature on aesthetics and landscape. On their trip of immediately after, Cozens produced for Payne Knight a series of fifty-seven monochrome drawings of Swiss views, five of which are in the Yale Center for British Art.
Near Chiavenna in the Grissons, Cozens's most dramatic and sublime expression of alpine scenery, was not created for Payne Knight, not was the 1776 drawing (now in the Leeds City Art Gallery) on which Cozens based this impressive watercolor part of the Payne Knight set. Nonetheless, Payne Knight's preoccupation with the sublime landscape may well be reflected in Cozens's composition, which exaggerates the scale of the mountains to enhance the awesome grandeur of the scene. In the angular, almost abstract treatment of the rocky forms, Cozens also shows a debt to the fantastic mountainous landscapes of his father, Alexander Cozens.

Scott Wilcox

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 117 cat. no. 96

Past Time - Geology in European and American Art (Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, 2019-02-16 - 2019-05-12) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Past Time - Geology in European and American Art (Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, 2018-09-21 - 2018-12-09) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Alexander and J. R. Cozens (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1987-01-30 - 1987-03-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-09-17 - 1980-11-16) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

British Painting and the European Continent (Haus der Kunst Munich, 1979-11-20 - 1980-01-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

English Landscape (Paul Mellon Collection) 1630-1850 (Yale Center for British Art, 1977-04-19 - 1977-07-17) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

C.F. (Charles Francis) Bell, The Drawings And Sketches of John Robert Cozens, A Catalogue With An Historical Introduction , Volume of the Walpole Society, vol. 23, 1934-1935, p. 35, no. 47, N12 W35 A1 (LC)+ Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

British Art at Yale, Apollo, v.105, no. 182, April 1977, pp. 270, 272-3, fig. 7, N5220 M552 A7 1977 OVERSIZE (YCBA) Published as April 1977 issue of Apollo; all of the articles may also be found in bound Apollo Volume [N1 A54 105:2 +] [YCBA]

John Gage, Zwei Jahrhunderte englische Malerei, britische Kunst und Europa 1680 bis 1880 : [Ausstellung] Haus der Kunst Mèunchen, 21. November 1979 bis 27. Januar 1980: [Katalog] , Ausstellungsleitung Haus der Kunst Mèunchen, Mèunchen, 1979, pp. 174-75, no. 76, fig. 76, ND466 Z85 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Graham Reynolds, English Landscape 1630-1850, Apollo, vol.105, no. 182, April 1977, pp. 270, 272-3, fig. 7, N1 A54 105:2 + (YCBA) Another copy of this article may be found in a separately bound and catalogued copy of this issue located on the Mellon Shelf [call number : N5220 M552 A7 1977 + (YCBA)] [YCBA]

Simon Schama, The Yale Centre for British Art, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, Issue no. 3923, May 20, 1977, p. 620, Film S748 (SML) Also avaiable online in TLS Historical Archive (ORBIS) [ORBIS]

Kim Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens, the poetry of landscape , Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1986, pp. 123, 124-25, pl. 138, NJ18 C83 S56 (YCBA) [YCBA]

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