FDA-D.155-2010
Parts
Object number
FDA-D.155-2010
Object type
Identification
Title
A Figure on the Edge of an Inferno
Pilkington
Pilkington
Title Type
assigned by cataloguer
collection
collection
Comments
This enigmatic scene is one of a group of five round drawings all with the same provenance which have been plausibly dated to 1776. In this year Cozens exhibited at the Royal Academy a painting of Hannibal crossing the Alps, a subject which recurs in one of the group. Both Hannibal, and the figure of Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost, who appears in yet another of the roundels, have been interpreted as oblique representations of the threat to Britain's rule in America from the warring colonists. How the figure on the edge of the inferno relates to this theme, if at all, has yet to be unravelled; it is not clear whether he is recoiling from the flames, or alternatively conjuring up some unseen force from the deep.
Other number
Pi 58
Description
Dimensions
diameter (sight size): 190mm
height (actual size): 228mm
width (actual size): 292mm
height (actual size): 228mm
width (actual size): 292mm
Materials & techniques note
Pencil and watercolour with scratching out, circular
Production
Person
Cozens, John Robert, 1752 - 1797 (Artist)
Date
c.1776
History and association
Object history note
Provenance: with Colnaghi, London [date?]
Exhibited: '30th Annual Exhibition of English Watercolours', Walker's Galleries, 1934, catalogue number 25; 'Alexander and John Robert Cozens: The Poetry of Landscape', Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Ottawa, 1986-87, Ottawa, catalogue number 198; 'A Genius for Watercolour', Christie’s, London, 6 to 24 January 2003, catalogue number 23
Exhibited: '30th Annual Exhibition of English Watercolours', Walker's Galleries, 1934, catalogue number 25; 'Alexander and John Robert Cozens: The Poetry of Landscape', Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and Art Gallery of Ontario, Ottawa, 1986-87, Ottawa, catalogue number 198; 'A Genius for Watercolour', Christie’s, London, 6 to 24 January 2003, catalogue number 23
