A View of Florence from the North Bank of the Arno
About this artwork
This idealised view of Florence recalls the idyllic classical landscapes of Claude and Poussin. The topographical detail was based on drawings made on the spot, but the overall composition, with picnicking figures, was conceived in the artist's studio. Fabre draws your attention from the shaded foreground to the sun-lit river and city, set against a hazy backdrop of snow-capped peaks. In the middle distance by the weir is a fourteenth-century watermill, which was destroyed in the nineteenth century to make way for the Lungarno Vespucci. Beyond is the Palazzo Signoria, and to the left the dome of the cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore.
Updated before 2020
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artist:François-Xavier FabreFrench (1766 - 1837)
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title:A View of Florence from the North Bank of the Arno
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date created:1813
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:96.00 x 135.00 cm; Framed: 119.70 x 159.20 x 9.70 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased with the aid of the Galloway Anderson Fund and the Art Fund 1998
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accession number:NG 2692
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gallery:
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subject:
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glossary:
François-Xavier Fabre
François-Xavier Fabre
Fabre was an outstanding pupil of the neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David, and won the French Academy's Rome Prize in 1787. He then spent most of his life in Italy, first in Rome and from 1793, in Florence. Fabre specialized in half-length portraits, popular with the British community in...