Banditti in a mountainous landscape

1770–79

Not on view

Mortimer’s imagination shaped British art between 1765 and his early death in 1779. During his last decade, he served as President of the Society of Artists, an exhibiting body that preceded the Royal Academy. Here Mortimer’s admiration for Salvator Rosa’s wild sensibility is evident in a strikingly vertical mountain landscape. Blasted trees, a gushing mountain torrent and rocky cliffs frame a ledge occupied by a band of banditti, or outlaws. Such figures were often appeared in Rosa’s paintings and Mortimer first exhibited a bandit subject in 1772, then continued to explore the theme in oil, pen and ink and etching for the remainder of his career.

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Title: Banditti in a mountainous landscape
Artist: John Hamilton Mortimer (British, Eastbourne 1740–1779 London)
Date: 1770–79
Medium: Pen and black ink
Dimensions: Sheet: 20 3/8 × 14 9/16 in. (51.8 × 37 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Purchase, Ian Woodner Family Collection Fund and Joseph McCrindle Foundation Gift, 2023
Object Number: 2023.97
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Frontispiece, from "Fifteen Etchings Dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds", John Hamilton Mortimer British, Etching — Frontispiece, from "Fifteen Etchings Dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds"
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Dedicatee Sir Joshua Reynolds
December 8, 1778

"Royal George" Cello, William Forster British, Spruce, maple, ebony, British — "Royal George" Cello
William Forster
1782

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