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Sunlight pours across golden-tan colored buildings overgrown with verdant plants in this horizontal watercolor. The main two-story building is to our right on the far side of a grassy lawn. A vine creeps across its façade, and a triangular structure projects up over the front of the building, which faces away from us. A high wall extends to or left and then comes toward us. Copper-brown-leaved trees and dark green plants grow on both sides of the wall and over a shallowly peaked roof, which suggests a more substantial structure that has been lost in the growth. Slate-blue hills are glimpsed in the deep distance to the left of the wall.

John Ruskin

The Garden of San Miniato near Florence, 1845

Not on View

Medium

watercolor and pen and black ink, heightened with white gouache, over graphite on wove paper laid down on thick, white paper

Dimensions

Overall: 34.2 x 49.2 cm (13 7/16 x 19 3/8 in.)
mat: 40.6 x 55.9 cm (16 x 22 in.)

Credit Line

Patrons' Permanent Fund

Accession Number

1991.88.1

Artists / Makers

John Ruskin (artist) British, 1819 - 1900

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Exhibition History

1992: Dürer to Diebenkorn: Recent Acquisitions of Art of Paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1992, no. 55.

1993: The Great Age of British Watercolors 1750-1880, Royal Academy of Arts, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1993, no. 245.

2006: The Artist's Vision: Romantic Traditions in Great Britain, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2006 - 2007

Bibliography

1903: Ruskin, John. Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition, E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, eds. London, 1903-1912: XXXV: pl. XXIV.