George Heming Mason, A.R.A.

James Stewart Hodgson (1827-1899);
Agatha, Marchioness of Sligo (1866-1965).

This picture appears to have been painted on 15 February 1853. At this time Mason painted many plein air sketches in the Roman campagna. The location of the present picture is almost certainly Tor di Quinto, in the countryside north of Rome. Mason’s friend and mentor Frederic Leighton painted two sketches of a similar outcrop (one sold in these rooms, 12 November 1992, lot 113 and the other, An Outcrop in the Campagna is in the National Gallery, London). These sketches are of a very similar size to the present picture and show the close connection between the two artist’s landscapes but perhaps also suggests that they may have been painted on the same sketching trip, although Leighton had taken a different angle for his studies.