A watercolour showing a view of the Villa Palmieri, near Fiesole, Florence. The villa is shown high on a hill to the left, surrounded by trees and gardens. Further hills are shown behind to the right. Inscribed on RCIN 980053.y verso: Begun [illegible words] Finished Ap: 17 - 1888 Sig . Corrodi.

On 24 March 1888 Queen Victoria arrived in Florence to stay for a month in the house of the Dowager Countess of Crawford. On 12 April Corrodi was presented to her and apparently finished this watercolour for her on 17 April.

Hermann Corrodi was a landscape painter of Swiss extraction. He worked in Rome in the winter, but had a studio in Baden and also worked in England. Queen Victoria met him in Florence in 1888 but he was already "well known" to the Prince and Princess of Wales, who owned a number of his oil paintings and had received lessons from the painter.

Text adapted from The Victorian Watercolours and Drawings in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen Vol. 1 by Delia Millar, London, 1995