Piazza del Duomo, Messina, Sicily

William Leighton Leitch British, Scottish

1835–36

Not on view

Leitch drew Messina’s main square when he visited the city in 1835-36 during a four-year sojourn in Italy. The distinctive banded façade of the city’s Norman cathedral, and its truncated bell-tower, would both be destroyed in an earthquake of 1908, and later rebuilt. At center, we are shown the fountain of Orion (1553), with Italian pilgrims kneeling in the foreground. After Leitch returned to London in 1837, he became active in the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, and served as drawing master to Queen Victoria and the royal children.

Artwork Details

Object Information

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Provenance

Title: Piazza del Duomo, Messina, Sicily
Artist: William Leighton Leitch (British, Glasgow, Scotland 1804–1883 London)
Date: 1835–36
Medium: Graphite with white heightening
Dimensions: Sheet: 10 1/16 × 14 1/16 in. (25.5 × 35.7 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Credit Line: Gift of Roberta J.M. Olson and Alexander B.V. Johnson, 2017
Object Number: 2017.663.4
Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Former Attribution Peter De Wint
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Eastern Coast of Rügen with Shepherd, Caspar David Friedrich German, Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, over graphite, with white opaque watercolor; partial framing lines in pen and brown-black ink — Eastern Coast of Rügen with Shepherd
Caspar David Friedrich
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The Lake of Zug, Joseph Mallord William Turner British, Watercolor and bodycolor (gouache) with reductive techniques over graphite — The Lake of Zug
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