Throughout his career as a painter, Edward Cooke travelled extensively in Europe, visiting France, Holland, Italy, Spain, North Africa and Scandinavia. Paintings and drawings resulted from all his travels, but it is evident that the places that provided the strongest fascination for him besides the southern coastline of England were the beaches and estuaries of Holland and the topography of Venice and Italy.

This pencil drawing was made during his first Mediterranean tour of 1845–46, when he travelled through the south of France, to Florence, Rome, Salerno and Capri. It is a topographical sketch, dated 1845, depicting the village of Varigotta (now called Varigotti) in the province of Genoa. It shows an extensive, mountainous landscape with a ruined tower in the middle of the composition, and mountains beyond. Characteristically, Cooke has annotated the drawing, recording some features of the foreground landscape: ‘pines and wood of olives’.