Though inscribed 'Fiesole II' the work is here titled as 'Fiesole III' to fit in with Peter Jones' definitive list of Richards' etchings. Second state after being cut down from a larger plate. The latter was a view of Fiesole ('Fiesole I', 1914, 315 x 237mm, PR2928) which was then cut down into two separate plates, the right hand side (this print 'Fiesole III', 1915, 243 x 130 mm) and the left hand side (Fiesole II, 1915, 256 x 105mm, PR2929). For all three plates see the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco website, under Fred Richards, where this plate (actually catalogued by San Francisco as 'Fiesole II') is viewable as a first state and includes the head and shoulders of a woman in the lower left corner. This figure was burnished away for this print, the second state. An original drawing (1914) entitled 'Fiesole from the Giardini Publici' was published by A. & C. Black for the sketchbook, 'Florence', May 1914, as the final plate, number 24. Jo Hounsome records the drawing as 'for etching'
Townscape at Fiesole, near Florence; foreground, a garden with cypress trees, a fence and two garden ornaments (a trough? and a bowl-shaped bird bath?); middleground, a square / piazza with figures on steps and villas with shuttered windows and tiled roofs; background, a hillside with a road, cypress trees, walls and villas. Etched in a tentative line with varied marks. Cross hatching creates dark tones for the foreground foliage
