This street, Via Bernardo Ricci in Albenga, Italy is painted directly with the brush – no pencil under drawing. It is a busy picture with figures in clusters deep in conversation as they go about their activities. The buildings are finely depicted and from a photograph taken close to the spot where Knighton-Hammond had set up his watercolours, one can see the accuracy of the lines of perspective and the architectural details. An example of the technical virtuosity of his draughtsmanship and how the artist translates a scene into a convincing pictorial space with his watercolours. The precision of the brushwork heightens the visual effect. Knighton-Hammond captures the entrance to Santa Maria in Fontibus in the right foreground with the Cathedral di San Michele Arcangelo beyond the square with its campanile.

As with many of Knighton-Hammond’s Continental pictures from the 1920s and early 30s, in this street scene in Albenga one can see the emerging mastery of urban streetscape painting in an Impressionist style with an understanding of the dynamics of urban life in Italy. Helped by the blue sky and bright sunlight, the artist here has an instinctive feeling for light, colour and tone enabling him to produce this watercolour of luminosity and clarity.