The artist, Richard Cooper Jnr. travelled extensively in Italy between 1776 and 1779 and during this time made copies of six landscapes by his Edinburgh colleague, Jacob More. The original watercolours by More are now lost but the drawings by Cooper, made in a sketchbook, are copied with sufficient fidelity for More's style to be apparent. The sketchbook bears the inscription, 'Sent to England for the Revd. Mr. Sandys, Cornwall' who was one of the Sandys brothers. The brothers worked as Chaplins to Lord Cowper and the 4th Lord Bristol, one living with Jacob More in Rome in 1793.