Albano, Italy (c. 1872): Art, History and Details

Albano, Italy (c. 1872) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is George Inness (American, 1825–1894).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This lyrical drawing on brilliant blue paper was done on a trip to Italy, where George Inness made a series of watercolor sketches of the Italian countryside in the vicinity of Albano. In contrast to the precision of his earlier Hudson River school paintings, in the early 1870s his work achieved a new freedom. This drawing is reminiscent of a classical Italian landscape, illustrating a broad expanse with a road winding through an Italian village, complete with framing trees in the foreground and ancient fortifications in the background. Inness made this drawing by applying wet washes one on top of another, intentionally creating a blurred effect, like that of a memory from the distant past.

Object facts

• Title: Albano, Italy
• Date: c. 1872
• Creator attribution: George Inness (American, 1825–1894)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor with gouache over graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 32.6 x 24.2 cm (12 13/16 x 9 1/2 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 20th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1938.62

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Henry A. Everett for the Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry S. “The Dorothy Burnham Everett Memorial Collection.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 25, no. 6 (1938).
• Lemonedes, Heather, "Visible Spirit", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 07, September 2004

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.