Topographical art and landscape history: Elizabeth Fanshawe (1779–1856) in early nineteenth-century Liguria

This paper considers the value of amateur topographical art of the early nineteenth century as a source, combined with fieldwork, for the understanding of past landscapes and environments of the Ligurian Apennines. Political and social changes following the Congress of Vienna (1815) enabled the number of English travelling to Italy to increase dramatically. The enormous popularity of artists and poets such as J. M. W. Turner and Lord Byron further encouraged the growth of visitors. In this paper we consider the work of a recently re-discovered amateur artist Elizabeth Fanshawe (1779–1856) who travelled to Italy 1829–31 with her two sisters Catherine and Penelope. We examine their social and political milieu and examine their great interest in art which ranged from old masters to modern art and their own drawings. We focus on six of Elizabeth Fanshawe's topographical drawings and identify problems around the identification of the views depicted and the potential value of the drawings as sources for understanding past landscapes. Other sources used include fieldwork, oral history, local archives and historical maps. The paper demonstrates that the drawings have considerable value in identifying and locating past management practices, including grazing, the cultivation of olives and chestnuts, and the rapid development network of new roads which helped to establish the Kingdom of Sardinia after 1815. The paper demonstrates that amateur topographical art is a valuable source for landscape history.