A Road in a Gorge near Naples

Thomas Jones

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jones belonged to a coterie of British artists who worked in Rome and Naples in the 1780s, developing innovative approaches to landscape. Watercolor’s subtle expressive potential allowed the creation of this exquisite light-filled image that the artist took back with him to London in 1783. Attracted to picturesque locations, he found a narrow cliff-lined road behind the Hospital of San Gennaro in Naples, described in his Memoirs as flanked with "Masses of Tuffa [volcanic rock], finely fringed with Shrubs of various hues and shades, and interspersed with grottoes or caverns, from whence stones for . . . building were excavated." Jones layered watercolor and gum to evoke the low golden light of a late afternoon, with the rays bathing a woman at prayer, a strolling workman, and a grazing donkey.

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