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 swiftly executed 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 distant, panoramic view of the town of Pordenone in the Friuli region in north-east Italy. The focal point of the composition is the campanile of the cathedral of San Marco. Characteristically, Cooke has annotated the drawing with colour notes, for later reference, noting ‘trees golden colour’.