Ancona with a View of the Arch of Trajan / Samuel Prout

About this Item

Record Details

Accession Number

2009/1.511.4

Title

Ancona with a View of the Arch of Trajan

Artist

Samuel Prout

Artist Nationality

British

Artist Life Dates

(1783 - 1852)

Medium and Support

watercolor, bodycolor, pen with brown ink on paper

Object Creation Date

1824-1852

Object Creation Place

Europe (continent)

United Kingdom (nation)

England (country)

Creation Place 1

Europe (continent)

Creation Place 2

United Kingdom (nation)

Creation Place 3

England (country)

Credit Line

Joseph F. McCrindle Collection

Style/Group/Movement

Picturesque

Period

Europe, Romantic Era (ca. 1775-ca. 1850)

Dimensions

21.91 cm x 17.15 cm (8 5/8 in. x 6 3/4 in.)

Century

19th century

Primary Object Classification

Drawing

Primary Object Type

cityscape

Physical Description

This small watercolor shows the view of an arch by a city waterfront. A wall closes off the left side of the street leading up to the arch, and creates a powerful sense of recession into space leading from the foreground to the monument in the middle distance. Scattered figures inhabit the street. Beyond the arch may be glimpsed the waters of a bay and a hill rising above the far shore.

Subject Matter

The talented draughtsman and watercolorist Samuel Prout produced this view of the Arch of Trajan in Ancona, a port on the Adriatic Sea, from sketches he made during one of his tours of Italy between 1824 and 1830. Although the precise date of this watercolor is unknown, Prout probably created it after returning to England, perhaps even decades after his visit, which was a typical practice at the time. The watercolor persuasively situates the viewer before one of the most famous monuments of Ancona through the use of linear perspective, which visually anchors the viewer in the street before the arch. The carefully composed view of the port and city beyond includes a glimpse of the domed cathedral of Saint Ciriaco at the top of the hill on the opposite shore.

This same image was reproduced as a steel engraving and published in Prout's view of Ancona was reproduced as a steel engraving in "The Work of Byron with a Life and Illustrative Notes" (1850) by William Anderson, thus providing readers of the book with a view of the city in which Lord Byron, the famous and controversial poet, had spent time during his self-imposed exile from England.

Primary Keywords

bays (bodies of water)

italy (nation)

perspective

triumphal arches

watercolors

Secondary Keywords

bodies of water

bodies of water and components of bodies of water

bodies of water by location

buildings and the land

coastline bodies of water

descriptors

europe (continent)

geographic and political locations

image-making processes and techniques

landscapes (environments)

memorial arches

monuments

monuments by form

natural landscapes

objects we use

paintings

paintings by material or technique

perspective and shading techniques

processes and techniques

processes and techniques by specific type

settlements and landscapes

single built works

single built works by function

single built works by specific type

visual works

visual works by medium or technique

Rights

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Technical Details

Collection

University of Michigan Museum of Art

Image Size

2010 x 3320

File Size

406 KB

Record

2009/1.511.4

Link to this Item

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2009-sl-1.511.4/2009_1.511.4.jpg content_copy