Carole Robb is one of a number of talented British artists who studied at the British School in Rome during the 1970s. Like Stephen Farthing (b.1950) and Christopher Le Brun (b.1951), she rejected abstraction in favour of a figurative style informed by old master painting. This drawing is part of a group of fourteen works (E.3719 to 3732-2004) that illustrate Robb's journey through Rome to Tivoli, and the Veneto, that she undertook in 2003/4. As such, it constitutes a contemporary uprise to the V&A's numerous Grand Tour watercolours of Italy, dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries.
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This gouache drawing shows a post which marks a gondola stand in a Venetian canal. The red and white stripes of these posts are a common sight along the city’s waterways. While artists often depict the posts as a background detail of Venetian scenes, Robb places this post in the right foreground to convey their importance as a local landmarks. Gondoliers, Venetians and tourists use these posts to navigate the many canals in all weather conditions. Other features of the drawing are less. The rectangular form in the bottom left may be the edge of a moored gondola; the yellow blobs reflections of the surrounding buildings.
