Artwork

View of Mount Emo [Haemus] or Great Balkan in Bulgaria with guards assembled to collect a toll from travellers

View of Mount Emo [Haemus] or Great Balkan in Bulgaria with guards assembled to collect a toll from travellers is a watercolor work on paper by the Romanticist artist Luigi Mayer. It dates from 1800 and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

About this work

Overview

This watercolour by Luigi Mayer captures a scene from a journey through Bulgaria, depicting a group of men gathered on a dirt path with a mountainous backdrop.

Subject & Meaning

The scene shows travelers halted by guards collecting a toll on Mount Emo, an incident encountered by Ainslie and his party in 1794, illustrating the challenges of traversing the Balkan Mountain range.

Technique & Style

Mayer's use of muted colors and dramatic lighting creates a sense of tension and drama, characteristic of the Romanticism movement, while the composition aligns with other related views from the same series.

History & Provenance

The watercolour is part of a group of thirty-two similar works from the journey, now dispersed across various collections, having been developed from an incident during the return journey from Constantinople to England.

Artist & collection

Artist

Luigi Mayer

Luigi Mayer (1755–1803) was an Italian-German artist and one of the earliest and most important late 18th-century European painters of the Ottoman Empire.