The warm palette and liberal use of opaque watercolour in this idyllic scene of peasants at work along the banks of the river Tiber outside Rome reflect Eliza Gore’s largely European training. The daughter of the artist Charles Gore, she was born in London but spent most of her life in Italy and Germany. Her teacher, the German landscape painter Jacob Philipp Hackert, regarded her as his most gifted pupil. Most of Gore’s work entered German museums after her death, making this watercolour one of her few works in a British collection.

Eliza or Elizabeth Gore was the eldest of Gore’s three surviving daughters. She and her sisters, Emily (1756-c.1831) and Hannah Anne (1758-1826) were renowned beauties and were popular with the Royal Dukes (the sons of George III) who were on friendly terms with their father and regularly sailed in Gore’s yacht around thesouth coast. The influence of Philipp Hackert, a close family friend, from their time in Rome is evident in the present work. Eliza studied under Hackert, both in Italy and Weimar and according to Goethe, Hackert described her as his most gifted pupil. In 1776, the date of the present work, Eliza’s sister Hannah Anne married George Clavering-Cowper, the future 3rd Earl Cowper (1738-1789) in Florence. A wedding portrait showing the Cowper and Gore families by Johann Zoffany is in the Yale Center for British Art. Eliza is shown next to her sister Emily, holding a porte-crayon. Eliza married the Rev. Henry Wood D.D (1726-1790), the son of Francis Wood JP of Monk Bretton, Yorkshire. Charles Gore moved to Weimar in 1791 and Eliza, following the death of her husband the previous year, moved with him. She died there in 1802. The family collections were left to the Weimar Library, including a portrait of Eliza painted by Johann Tischbein in circa 1795. Two gouaches by her of Vesuvius erupting, dated 1775, are in the Klassik Stiftung, Weimar.A very similar composition by Gore is in the collection of the Klassik Stiftung, Weimar (inv. no. KK 766).

Private collection, London, purchased at auction c. 2011; Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, 2021; purchased there by the Spooner Trust, 2021

A View of One's Own, Landscapes by British Women Artists, 1760-1860, Courtauld Gallery, London, 28/01/2026-20/05/2026

Drawings and Watercolours by Charles Gore (1729-1807), Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, 02/07/2021-09/07/2021

Drawings and Watercolours by Charles Gore (1729-1807), Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London, 2021
cat. no. 17
Exhibition - Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Gallery, London, 2-9 July 2021.

Watermark: Watermarks: centre: “IV”. Backing sheet (historic), Verso: centre: a name composed of double lines, but unable to decipher; possibly marred by further marks on inner layers of laid paper.

Collector's mark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower left corner, white bodycolour, signed and dated: "EM. Gore / 1776".