Petraia

Painting height: 30.5 cm
Painting width: 63.3 cm
Frame height: 57 cm
Frame width: 90.5 cm

Petraia; Italian mountainous landscape showing a villa among trees.

Differing from Fiesole (COMWG.12, 1844-1845) with this work Watts faced west from the Hollands’ villa in order to paint this landscape. In the catalogue of the works of G.F. Watts completed after his death Mary Watts details some background information on this painting and Fiesole- another landscape created at roughly the same time. While noting this work was displayed at the Royal Academy in 1905 she wrote:

to find the point of view form which was painted this landscape with its famous Medici Villa Mr. Watts had climbed to the machiolated [sic] gallery which surmounts the wall of the villa of Careggi just as ‘Fiesole’ another picture of this time was painted from the opposite side of this gallery [1].

With this description Mary confirms not only the where G.F. Watts painted this landscape, but additional details such as the direction he faced to find this view, the identity of the buildings in this work, and provides information on Fiesole- another work Watts completed at roughly the same time.

        Watts scholar Allen Staley provides more information on Watts’s time in Italy and the inspiration for this painting.  He notes that Watts lived with the Lord (the British minister to Tuscany) and Land Holland at a villa (Careggi), a few miles north of Florence from 1843 until he returned to England in 1847 [2]. Staley further identifies the location of this landscape by identifying the mountains in the background as the around Montecatini Terme [3]. Staley also points out the prominent cypress trees and names the building in the centre of this work as Villa Realle di Petraia, located approximately three miles north of Florence, which includes a tower from a medieval castle on the site as well as elements completed during a refurbishment in 1575 for Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici [4]. Both this work and Fiesole, completed at approximately the same time, demonstrate Watts’s interest and approaches to landscapes during his stay in Italy. While this work prominently displays the architecture, Fiesole places more emphasis on the natural landscape.

Footnotes:

[1]    Mary Watts, Catalogue, page 123.

[2]    Allen Staley, “1 Petraia 1845,” Painting the Cosmos: Landscapes by G.F. Watts (ed. Allen Staley and Hilary Underwood), Page 24, Allen Staley, “2 Petraia c.1845,” Victorian High Renaissance (ed. Richard Dorment, Gregory Hedburg, Leonee Ormand, Richard Ormand, Allen Staley), page 58.

[3]   Allen Staley, “1 Petraia 1845,” Painting the Cosmos: Landscapes by G.F. Watts (ed. Allen Staley and Hilary Underwood), Page 24.

[4]   Allen Staley, “1 Petraia 1845,” Painting the Cosmos: Landscapes by G.F. Watts (ed. Allen Staley and Hilary Underwood), Page 24.

Text by Dr Ryan Nutting