Banditti in a Mountainous Landscape

John Hamilton Mortimer

1770–79 · Pen and black ink · Drawings and Prints

Mortimer’s imagination shaped British art between 1765 and his early death in 1779. During his last decade, he served as President of the Society of Artists, an exhibiting body that preceded the Royal Academy. Here Mortimer’s admiration for Salvator Rosa’s wild sensibility is evident in a strikingly vertical mountain landscape. Blasted trees, a gushing mountain torrent and rocky cliffs frame a ledge occupied by a band of banditti, or outlaws. Such figures were often appeared in Rosa’s paintings and Mortimer first exhibited a bandit subject in 1772, then continued to explore the theme in oil, pen and ink and etching for the remainder of his career.

Artist

John Hamilton Mortimer

Date

1770–79

Medium

Pen and black ink

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Ian Woodner Family Collection Fund, 2023