Naples

After studying with Hudson River School-painter Asher Brown Durand (1796–1886), the versatile Colman began his career as a landscape painter before working as an interior designer. He was one of the founders of the American Watercolor Society and played an important role in promoting the medium through practice and exhibition in the United States. An inveterate traveler, Colman took a four-year tour of Europe and North Africa in the early 1870s, visiting France, Italy, Morocco, and Spain. This diminutive view of Naples is significantly smaller than the grand-scale watercolors that Colman made for exhibition; nevertheless, it displays the meticulous technique and ability to render glowing light that characterize his best works.