Master Art

The present sheet was drawn during the summer of 1845 at Ariccia, a town near Lake Nemi in the Roman Campagna, south of the city. The plant depicted in this watercolour is a flowering plant known as a Verbascum or Mullein.

Among stylistically comparable nature studies by Cromek is a drawing of A Branch with Leaves, among the many watercolours by the artist today in the possession of his great-grandson, Wilfrid Warrington. A similar watercolour study of a mullein, inscribed and dated ‘Ariccia July 29, 1848’ is also in the collection of Cromek’s descendants.