John Glover, O.W.S.

In the present collection since at least the early 20th century.

The artist’s Bond Street Exhibition, 1820;

Hobart, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery; Adelaide, Art Gallery of South Australia; Canberra, National Gallery of Australia; Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, 28 November 2003 – 3 October 2004, no. 42.

B. S. Long, 'John Glover', in Walkers Quarterly, no. 15, April 1924, p. 18;

D. Hansen, et al., John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, exh. cat., Hobart 2003, pp. 72–3 and 173, no. 42, reproduced in colour pp. 73 and 173. 

This exceptional, panoramic view of Tivoli represents perhaps the greatest achievement of Glover’s extensive 1818 tour of Italy. Based on pen and ink drawings done on the spot in his sketchbook (fig. 1), the view shows the town perched on the hilltop in the middle distance, with the famous colonnaded Temple of Vesta at the centre of the composition, and the river Aniene cascading through its many ravines, dropping to the plains below and meandering its way. Located in the Sabine Hills, east of Rome, the area provided one of the touchstone experiences of the Grand Tour, with its juxtaposition of extensive views across the broad, fertile Roman Campagna and the wooded hills, rocky outcrops and raging torrents, together with the monuments of antiquity. It had long been a favourite spot with painters in the eighteenth century, and Glover sketched extensively whilst at Tivoli, returning repeatedly to the subject in the years that followed. This picture, which is one of his most important, was among the first and was exhibited by the artist in 1820 at the first of his solo gallery shows, held at 16 Old Bond Street.

Hugely successful, both commercially and in terms of establishing his reputation, these solo exhibitions, which he held annually for five years in the early 1820s, were among the first such entrepreneurial ventures in what was becoming an increasingly pluralised London art market; and were significant in cementing Glover’s position as one of the most important figures of the British Regency art world. A member, and sometime President, of the Society of Painters in Water Colours (1808), and a foundation member of both the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours (1812–20) and the Society of British Artists, of which he was also President in 1826, Glover was richly patronised by many of the leading collectors of modern British art of the period – these included John Ruchout, 2^nd Baron Northwick (1770–1859) and Sir Thomas Phillips (1792–1872), who amassed a total of forty-one paintings by the artist in his ‘Glover Gallery’ at Thirlestane, near Cheltenham. In 1830, following a prosperous decade in London which saw his career and reputation go from strength to strength, Glover emigrated to Australia, arriving in what was then Van Diemen’s Land, modern Tasmania, on his 64th birthday. Today, his most significant legacy is as one of the earliest professional European artists to document the landscape of Australia and his work is featured prominently in a number of major museums, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, in Hobart (fig. 2).

A committed Claudian in his early years, Glover had long nurtured an ambition to make the Grand Tour and was among the first artists to journey to the continent in 1814, following Napoleon’s abdication and exile to Elba. The evidence of his sketchbooks and the titles of subsequently exhibited pictures indicate that he must have travelled up the Rhine between Cologne and Basel into Switzerland, a route that would become familiar to his near contemporary J.M.W. Turner in later years, and along the valley of the Arne to Lausanne. Following the edge of Lake Geneva to Bex and Martigny, he explored the Alps, east along the Rhône to Münster, in the Valais region, and south to the towering massif of Mont Blanc. Having sated his urge for the Sublime, from here he travelled to Paris, where he spent time savouring the great treasures of art amassed there by Napoleon, where he was spotted by his fellow English painter John Crome.¹ Whilst in Paris he painted his great ode to Claude Lorrain, entitled Paysage Composé-Bergères en Repose (untraced), for which he was awarded a gold medal by Louis XVIII at the Salon of 1814. The return of Napoleon, following his escape from Elba, however, forced Glover to quit Paris before he could be presented with his reward – although tradition has it that the newly reinstated Emperor himself forwarded the medal to the artist in London.

Four years later Glover was to return to the Continent, this time making it all the way to the favoured destination of Grand Tourists of the previous century – Italy. Crossing the Alps at the pass of Mount Cenis, his ultimate objective was Rome: both the Eternal City itself and the Campagna which had provided so much inspiration to Claude and Gaspard Poussin, Glover’s inspirations, as well as their British followers, most notably Richard Wilson (fig. 3). With the exception of a few drawings of the more obvious Roman monuments, including the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum, and several drawings of Sculpture, Glover does not appear to have been particularly overwhelmed by his encounter with the Antique and Renaissance art. His main preoccupation, like Wright of Derby before him, and Turner after, was with the Italian landscape itself, making a record of as much topographical detail as he could. Lakes Nemi and Albano, the towns of Frascati and Ariccia, were all high on his itinerary and well-documented in his sketchbook for the Roman sojourn. Above all, however, the majestic rocks, ancient ruins and waterfalls at Tivoli, were rich in picturesque potential.

Reviewing Glover’s 1820 Bond Street exhibition, the critic for Ackermann’s Repository summed up what appears to have been the general view that ‘the artist has much improved during his late tour in Italy. His taste is chastened, and his eyes more clear. He appears to have studied nature with more of feeling, than he was wont to do in his earlier productions’.² This painting, which was one of the principal fruits of this labour, was particularly singled out for praise by the critics, however. The Times described it as ‘the chief attraction of the rooms… the middle ground and distance are exceedingly fine. Every thing is made out in the most beautiful variety of form and tone, whilst the whole is entirely divested of harshness, and united in the most perfect harmony. The blue line of Rome in the distance, with the dark dome of St Peter’s rising majestically above the more humble edifices, presents a very grand and natural appearance’.³ The Literary Chronicle was even more fulsome, calling the picture ‘without a doubt, in our opinion, Mr Glover’s very best picture, and in its fine, rich and most splendid effect, equal to Turner’s pictures’.⁴

¹ As noted in a letter to Chrome’s wife dated 10 October 1814, quoted in L. Binyon, John Crome and John Sell Cotman, London 1906, p. 28.

² Ackermann’s Repository (second series), vol. IX, no. LIV, p. 362.

³ The Times, 22 May 1820, p. 3.

⁴ The Literary Chronicle and Weekly Review, 27 May 1820, p. 351.