View of Tivoli with the Church of San Silvestro,

1807

The back of the canvas is inscribed "1807 Tivoli 29 juillet 1807/ Granet 5 à7 soir," identifying this as a textbook example of the works made by students from the French Academy in Rome in the hills where they painted on summer days. In a treatise on oil sketches, Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes cautioned against spending more than two hours on a sketch in the evening, when light changes quickly (here, Grant worked from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.). Such sketches, made to document an image for future reference, were forerunners to photography. This example did not remain with Granet’s others, now in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence, and may have been given or traded to an artist friend, a tradition among the students.