View of the Cascades at Tivoli

Nicolas Delobel

ca.1724–33 · Black and red chalk, pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, watercolor and gouache · Drawings and Prints

Delobel was a pupil of Louis de Boullogne and Nicolas Vleughels. When the latter was named Director of the Académie de France in Rome in 1724, Delobel accompanied him to Italy. Under Vleughels, the French students were encouraged to make plain air landscape drawings in the Roman campagna. The proposed drawing must have been made on one of these expeditions. This painterly study depicts the cascades at Tivoli. opting for a high horizon line, Delobel allows the buildings to occupy the upper band of the composition. Much of the sheet is given over to a description of the waterfall, rocky outcroppings, foliage, and ruins of this famous site, a short distance from Rome.

Artist

Nicolas Delobel

Date

ca.1724–33

Medium

Black and red chalk, pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, watercolor and gouache

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Ian Woodner Family Collection Fund and The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2017