Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Ex. collection J. W. Barnett, Southbourne
Private collection, UK, for circa 80 years

EXHIBITED:
London, Royal Academy, 1849, no.285

Born in Liverpool, William Linton started his early life in a merchant's office before becoming a professional artist. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1817, his early submissions drawn from England's picturesque countryside, often depicting scenes from the Lake District. In 1826, he was commissioned by the Duke of Bedford to paint an 'Italian Scene,' for the dining-room at Woburn Abbey. He also received commissions from Lord Egremont, and many of his works were engraved.

Linton took an active role in the founding of the Society of British Artists, of which he became President in 1837, and exhibited at the Royal Academy, British Institution and the Old Watercolour Society from 1817-59. Linton also published several books, Scenery of Greece and its Islanders (1857), which was illustrated with 50 of his engravings, and Ancient and Modern Colours, from the Earliest Periods to the Present Time, with their Chemical and Artistical Properties (1853), which displayed his interest in chemistry. Linton was best known for his classical landscapes, 'characterised by an unaffected truthfulness' ¹, which were inspired by several tours to the South of France, Italy and Malta and Greece.

The present work, following its exhibition at the Royal Academy, was purchased by Sir Robert Peel, who was twice Prime Minister in the 1830s and 1840s. Peel put together a formidable art collection, mostly by Dutch and Flemish masters. Much of the collection was sold to the National Gallery in 1871, to cover the debts of Peel's profligate son.

The Acqua Felice is one of the aqueducts of Rome, completed in 1586 by Pope Sixtus V. It was one of the first new aqueducts in early modern Rome, sourced from the springs at Pantano Borghese, off Villa Casilina. The aquaduct runs for 15 miles, terminating at the Fontana dell'Acqua Felice on the Quirinal Hill, standing to one side of the Strada Pia (now Via del Quirnale) so as to form a piazza.

¹ Robert Edmund Graves, Dictionary of National Biography