British (?), 'The Fourvière Hill at Lyon', about 1780

This work is an example of the uncertain fate of many landscape sketches. In the eighteenth century, artists across Europe began to sketch outdoors. This allowed them to focus on the fleeting effects of light and the seasons on the landscape. Such sketches were created at speed so as to record these rapid changes. The approach also encouraged experimentation in technique and subject matter. At this time, working outside was never intended to produce works of art for display. This was in contrast to artists at the end of the nineteenth century, in particular the Impressionists. Rather, landscape oil sketches were tools for artists to use in their studios on more worked-up oil paintings.

Renaissance artists used their drawings in a similar way. As with drawings, many oil sketches were destroyed, or at best discarded, when the artist died. For most art lovers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was no aesthetic or practical reason to keep these experimental and often unfinished works. Attention was focused on the completed oil paintings. The sketches that survived were usually unsigned and untitled. Therefore, their authorship and the location of the scenes are now lost.

Here, the soft blue sky and wispy clouds are in pleasing contrast to the manmade forms of the town. The shadows suggest that the sketch was made towards the end of the day. The warm Mediterranean russets, reds and oranges hint at an Italian view, but the exact town remained elusive for years. Many artists worked in and around Rome and Naples, but hilltop towns such as this can be found across Italy, making identification more complex. Recently, however, a member of the public contacted the National Gallery and identified the location as the Fourvière Hill in Lyons in France. They named the villa on this hill as the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière.

The artist’s identity and nationality are uncertain. Many scholars have proposed British artists such as Richard Wilson, Francis Towne, Thomas Patch, William Marlow or Alexander Cozens. Others have suggested that the artist might be French. As the hill is in Lyons, the artist is likely to be the Welshman Thomas Jones. Jones visited Lyons on his way to Rome. He wrote in his memoirs, ‘Lyons for its stile [sic] of Buildings which are all together Italian as well as for its bold and picturesque Situation – pleased me infinitely more than Paris – and was it not from a dread of the French Police I should have, with great pleasure made several Studies.’