Attributed to Thomas Hearne 1744-1817

Agrigentum was said to have been the largest city in Sicily in ancient times and its magnificent Greek ruins situated along the coast, such as the Tomb of Theron, provided inspiration for many writers and artists in the eighteenth century.

Richard Payne Knight employed Thomas Hearne, together with John Robert Cozens,  to work up some of Charles Gore's and Jakob Philipp Hackert's sketches from their Sicilian tour of 1777 into additional finished watercolours for publication.  The present work is after a watercolour by Charles Gore, now in the British Museum (BM 1927-7-12-4).  Another version of this subject by Hearne, on a sheet of laid paper the same size as the present work, is also in the British Museum (see David Morris, Thomas Hearne and his landscape, 1989, p.88, no.70)