Jonathan Skelton

This so-called tinted drawing emphasizes pen work and keeps color, applied in broad washes, to a bare minimum. Following the conventions of topographical drawing, the artist portrayed the essential information of the locale with clarity and precision, adding stock figures (called “staffage”) for scale. The Roman ruin-the tomb of a patrician woman from the 1st century BCE located outside Rome-is presented as an ordinary sight, one that any British traveler might stumble across on a daily carriage ride.