The Chasm at Delphi

John Robert Cozens (1752 - 1798)

Fitzwilliam Museum

1790

Cozens travelled abroad twice but never visited Greece. This work was made after a sketch by James Stuart who in turn, was working from a description of another traveller. While the topographical detail is largely accurate, Cozens overlays this with an element of imaginative fantasy. Cozens made three watercolours from Stuart's 1794 publication on Greece and this is the largest of the three. It is the most sombre and monumental, evoking the ruggedness of the immense rock face by a dramatic play of light and shade.

• Medium: graphite & watercolour on paper
• Dimensions: 64.2 x 92cm
• Art Fund Grant: £35000 ( Total: £140,422)
• ArtFunded in: 2005
• Vendor: Executors of the Estate of the late G A Goyder

Provenance

Christie's, 1925; Major K M Agnew; C Morland Agnew; George Goyder.

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