America / 1837
View of Florence
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs View of Florence as painting (America · 1837).
Novelist Henry James grew up with this painting and described its foreground monk as his “constant friend.”
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this painting as oil on canvas and credits Thomas Cole (American, born England,1801–1848).
The museum's collection notes: Cole visited Italy in 1831 and made a small pencil sketch of this vista of Florence shortly before sunset. In his New York studio six years later, he transformed the drawing into this large oil painting, adding picturesque humans and goats to the foreground. Exhibiting View of Florence alongside a painting of the Catskill Mountains in New York in 1837, Cole set out to prove that he had mastered the very different landscapes of the Old and New Worlds.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtView of FlorenceOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.