Jacob More

Jacob More learned his trade in Edinburgh, where he was born around 1740, painting scenery and decorative panels in the workshop of the Norie family, house-painters who also turned out landscapes. He first made his name at home with views of the Scottish countryside, including the falls of the River Clyde, among the earliest serious paintings of Scotland's own scenery.

Then, like many British artists, he went to Rome, arriving in 1773, and never left. There he modelled himself on Claude Lorrain, the 17th-century master of golden, idealised Italian views, so closely that collectors called him the British Claude, or simply More of Rome. In 1787 Goethe, travelling through Italy, visited his studio and judged his work admirably thought out.

He died in Rome in 1793 and was buried there, an Edinburgh man who had spent his last twenty years painting the Roman countryside for the visitors passing through it.