View of Florence1837
Cole visited Italy in 1831 and made a small pencil sketch of this vista of Florence shortly before sunset. More about this work
About this work
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.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Thomas Cole
American, born England,1801–1848 · Born in Lancashire; died in Catskill, New York.
Cole emigrated from Lancashire to the United States as a teenager and, largely self-taught, made his name in 1825 with views of the Catskill Mountains that launched what became known as the Hudson River School. Years in England and Italy deepened his ambitions, and he joined landscape to moral allegory in series such as The Course of Empire and The Voyage of Life. The Oxbow sets wild forest against cultivated valley. He lived at Catskill, New York, until his early death.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Hudson River School
American landscape painters of the mid-1800s who made wilderness their grand subject.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1961.39
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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