Licenza, near Rome: Horace's Villa

William Havell

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

After a decade in China and India, Havell returned to England in 1826, visiting Italy two years later with the painter Thomas Uwins. The present drawing is one of two known works made during that sojourn (the other is "Coast Scene, Amalfi," Victoria and Albert Museum). Horace's farm in the Sabine Hills, about thirty miles east of Rome, is an iconic site that influenced later country retreats from Stourhead, Wiltshire to Thoreau's cottage at Walden Pond, and Havell's view takes in the slope of Colle Rotondo from the Licenza River, where the famous villa once stood. A range of watercolor techniques have been used, with reserved paper forming the cumulus clouds, scratching applied to indicate ripples in the water, and touches of gouche for highlights. A barefoot goatherd and his extended flock accentuate the contours of the land, and create a sense of movement.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art