Italian Coast Scene with Ruined Tower by Thomas Cole, 1838, oil on canvas - National Gallery of Art, Washington - DSC00053

Thomas Cole(1801–1848) inspired the generation of American landscape painters that came to be known as the Hudson River School. Born in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England, in 1801, at the age of seventeen he emigrated with his family to the United States, first working as a wood engraver in Philadelphia before going to Steubenville, Ohio, where his father had established a wallpaper manufacturing business.