Gardens of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli

Charles Joseph Natoire

1760 · Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, watercolor, heightened with white, over black and red chalk · Drawings and Prints

Director of the French Academy in Rome from 1751 to 1775, Natoire taught many young French artists, including Hubert Robert and Jean Honoré Fragonard. During this period he received occasional commissions for paintings but increasingly devoted his time to landscape drawings, often worked up in watercolor. The Villa d’Este in Tivoli, outside Rome, was a favorite destination for Natoire and his students, popular for its dramatic vistas featuring fountains and statues set amid lush foliage. In this example, we see the Fountain of the Water Organ flanked by trees, with a cascade falling below. Invented figures enliven the foreground.

Artist

Charles Joseph Natoire

Date

1760

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, watercolor, heightened with white, over black and red chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1965