A black and white chalk drawing on faded blue paper showing figures in a rocky landscape, by a waterfall. A building with a tower on a hill to the right.

The drawing is listed as a drawing by Robert Crone in 'Inventory A', the inventory of drawings in the collection under George III dated to around 1810, on pages that can be dated to about 1802. Crone was born in Dublin and studied with Richard Wilson in Rome between 1755-6, staying in Rome until 1767. In the 1770s Crone exhibited landscape drawings and painting at the Royal Academy in London. His drawings in black and white chalks on blue paper are in the manner of his teacher Richard Wilson, but very few examples are known today.

Edward Edwards (Anecdotes of Painters who have resided or been born in England … 1808, p. 59), wrote of Crone's time in Rome: 'His progress in art, was greatly impeded by the melancholy state of his health, for, at the age of fifteen, he had an epileptic seizure, which materially injured his form: he had no return of this complaint until fifteen years afterwards, when, in the Barbarini [sic] palace at Rome, he fell down in a second fit from a scaffold, on which he was elevated, to copy a picture; from this time, his fits continued at intervals, until the fatal one, which put a period to his existence. He died in London in the early part of the year 1779.’ Edwards also writes, ‘He was of a remarkably good temper, and most excellent character. His pictures are not very numerous, but there are some in the Royal Collection. He also executed many drawings in black and white chalks, upon a blue-grey Roman paper.' This note has led to a long-standing misconception that the Royal Collection holds several works by Crone, but the claim probably has no other basis than this one sheet. There are no paintings by Crone in the Royal Collection.