Artist, sailor, boat designer and traveller, Charles Gore was born in Lincolnshire, the son of a retired Hamburg merchant. After attending Westminster School, he initially embarked on a career in the family’s bank, Gore and Mellish, but retired on his marriage to the heiress Mary Cockerill in 1751.

Precipitated by Gore’s wife’s delicate health, the Gore family (Charles, Mary and their three surviving daughters, Emily, Eliza and Hannah Ann) spent many years living and travelling throughout Europe, including to France, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. In 1773 the family moved to Lisbon, before settling in Italy between 1774 and 1778, followed by nearly two years in Switzerland and the Low Countries. They stayed mainly in Rome but travelled extensively throughout the region, undertaking frequent lengthy cruises along the Ligurian and Tyrrhenian coasts. Gore returned to Italy again in the summer of 1794 travelling around the Italian Lakes and to Naples.

Isola Bella is the largest of the islands in Lake Maggiore, owned by the Borromeo family. Initially a rocky outcrop inhabited by fishermen and with two small churches, Carlo III began an ambitious building programme to create a palazzo in 1632. Work continued under subsequent generations developing and expanding the palace and large terraced pleasure gardens. There is a watercolour by Gore showing the island from a distance, also dated 1795, in the British Museum (inv. Oo,4.2) and a further watercolour showing the island from a similar angle in the Yale Center for British Art (inv. B1975.3.165).

Michael Ingram (1917-2005); Guy Peppiatt; where purchased by the Spooner Trust; Gift of the Spooner Trust 2023

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

Mount (removed): Recto: lower centre right, pencil: "3". Verso: upper centre, pencil: "5805 / 69"