Lot 1640 Dα

The painter Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros was born in Yverdon in Switzerland and was probably self-taught. Alongside a few works in oils, he specialised in watercolours in unusually large formats. He travelled to Rome in 1776 when he was 28 years old and remained there for the next 30 years. In Italy he came into contact with the influential prints of Piranesi, whose views of Rome and its surroundings had a lasting influence on the artist and his style. This large-format watercolour was painted shortly after his arrival in Italy in 1777. It shows the rushing waterfalls and the famous temple of the Sybil at Tivoli surrounded by exceptionally finely painted dense vegetation. The work was probably completed for one of the many foreigners visiting Italy on the Grand Tour, who were ususally aristocrats from England, Sweden, or Russia.