Entrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples

Entrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples

John "Warwick" Smith

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This Roman tunnel cut through the rock near Naples provides access to coastal towns to the west and was a favorite subject for artists. Smith lived in Italy between 1776 and 1781, supported by his patron George Greville, 2nd earl of Warwick. The artist worked closely with fellow Britons William Pars, Thomas Jones, and Francis Towne to develop watercolor’s potential. Of the group, Smith enjoyed the highest reputation as a colorist; here, he applied warm washes to delineate steep stone cliffs bordering the approach to the so-called grotto and deeper tones to describe indentations left by quarriers and a memorial plaque in the left foreground. A developed version of the scene was engraved and published in the artist’s Select Views in Italy (1792).

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Entrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, NaplesEntrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, NaplesEntrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, NaplesEntrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, NaplesEntrance to the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples

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.