Attributed to John Cleveley, Jnr 1747-1786

George Cary (1731-1805);
Thence by descent to the present owner

Leghorn, still Tuscany's principal seaport but now known as Livorno, was once Italy's greatest Mediterranean commercial emporium and entrepot, especially during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  Situated just below the Gulf of Genoa and barely fifty miles from Florence, it owed much of its prosperity to the influence of the Medici family although its development was interrupted by a damaging earthquake in 1741.  It survived most of the devastation and one of the city's most distinctive features was its magnificent lighthouse, seen on the far right of the present watercolour, constructed on a rock guarding the harbour entrance in 1304 and which became a major attraction for tourists, including John Evelyn, the diarist, who visited it in 1644 and marvelled at its 'divers fanales [finials] and skonces.'

This watercolour shows the harbour and shipping from England, Sweden and Denmark, the sun setting beyond. It is attributed to John Cleveley the Younger and although this is much larger and more dramatic than more familiar watercolours by him, a comparison with the drawing of the buildings in the port and the boats supports the attribution, as does his early training as an artist from Paul Sandby which could contribute to the emphasis on the sky.  Furthermore, there is evidence that suggests that Cleveley might have been known to the ancestors of the present owner.  This watercolour once hung at Torre Abbey in Devon and was owned by George Cary (1731-1805), whose great uncle, George Cary (born c.1651) with his wife Anna Vascomcelos, lady in waiting to Catherine of Braganza, moved to Lisbon after 1685.   Albeit much later, in 1775, Cleveley Jr sketched  subjects in Portugal, and an album of watercolours by him entitled Views round the Coast and on the River Tagus, (Anonymous Sale in these Rooms, 17th November 1983, lot 5), includes a sketch entitled From Mr Carey's on the Hill. 

Cleveley, like his father of the same name, trained as a shipwright in the docks at Deptford but then turned to painting and drawing marine subjects.  After exhibiting at the Society of Artists in 1767 and the new Royal Academy in 1770, he was chosen as a draughtsman on the Royal Society expedition to Iceland in 1772, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in the following year two Icelandic views.