- Artist or Maker
- Thomas Cole
England, Lancashire, Bolton-le-Moor, active United States, 1801-1848 - Title
- Distant View of Mount Etna
- Date Made
- 1842
- Medium
- Graphite and white gouache on gray-green paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 10 1/2 x 14 1/2 in. (26.67 x 36.83 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.73.137.4
- Collecting Area
- Prints and Drawings
- Curatorial Notes
From the exhibition Thomas Cole in Italy and Switzerland, 1841-1842
August 16, 2002-January 29, 2003
This is a preliminary drawing for one of Cole’s most celebrated paintings, The View of Etna from Taormina of 1843. Cole painted at least six views of Mount Etna, a volcanic mountain in eastern Sicily. He climbed the peak and described the hike in his journal on May 9, 1842. He also wrote a poem called “Mount Etna,” from which an excerpt follows:
Sublime art thou O Mount!…
[W]hen thy scathed sides
Are laved with fire; answered thine earthquake voice
By screams and clamor of affrighted men.
Lone mountain of the pallid brow and heart
Of fire! Thou art a resting place for thought,
Thought reaching far above thy bounds; from thee
To Him who bade the central fires construct
This wond’rous fabric.
