Descent into the Plain of Granada (1834): Art, History and Details

Descent into the Plain of Granada (1834) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is David Roberts (Scottish, 1796–1864).

The work and its context

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

Later celebrated for his topographical landscapes of the Middle East, David Roberts’s first extended trip abroad was in 1832 when he traveled through France to Spain over a period of 10 months. This watercolor records a scene from Roberts’s journey from Madrid to Andalusia. He described the trip in a letter to his sister: "I jogged on a considerable part of the way on foot, happy and contented. Granada is in the most beautiful situation that can be imagined. It lies at the foot of a ridge of high mountains, called the Sierra Nevada, or the Mountains of Snow." Replete with burdened mules, a lone figure on foot, and sun-drenched mountains with a view of Granada in the distance, this watercolor vividly illustrates the artist’s recollections.

Object facts

• Title: Descent into the Plain of Granada
• Date: 1834
• Creator attribution: David Roberts (Scottish, 1796–1864)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor with gouache, scratch-away, and graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 23.2 x 32.5 cm (9 1/8 x 12 13/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1940.563

A detail from the museum

This drawing was reproduced as a wood engraving in Roscoe's first volume, The Tourist in Spain: Granada.

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Roscoe, Thomas. The Tourist in Spain: Granada, Illustrated from Drawings by David Roberts. London: Robert Jennings, 1835.
• Francis, Henry S. "The Bequest of James Parmelee." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 2 (February 1941): 15-27, 31.
• Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.

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.