Few artists have enjoyed so dramatic a reappraisal so long after death as that accorded recently to Thomas Jones. While many of his pictures have traditionally been regarded as good but not outstanding, a series of studies completed in Italy between 1776-83 sparked new critical enthusiasm when they were shown in 2003.

Channel Five’s Waldemar Januszczak called it “some of the most original and exhilarating landscape art produced by anyone, anywhere, in the 18th century.”

Like his mentor Richard Wilson, Thomas Jones was a “gentleman painter”. The second son of a wealthy landowning family from Pencerrig in Radnorshire, he attended Christ’s College Brecon and Jesus College Oxford.

Instead of going into the church or army – the usual career paths for younger sons of the gentry- he set his heart on becoming a painter. Jones studied first under William Shipley in Wales before joining Wilson at his Covent Garden studio in London.

Wilson gave his fellow Welshman a through grounding in his highly accomplished landscape style. Jones spent the next four years as a moderately successful jobbing painter, subsidised by his ample private income.

Like so many wealthy young men of his time, he followed the ‘Grand Tour’ route to Italy- it was there that he completed his now famous sketches.

He achieved a level of almost photo-realistic level of detail in small depictions of Neapolitan and Roman scenes that was bold, timeless and highly original.

Jones was also a keen writer with a nice line in gossip about his famous contemporaries. His memoirs are thought to have probably been the earliest example of an artist writing his autobiography.

While Wilson has long been recognised as an influential figure, the new respect for Thomas Jones might just suggest that a “Welsh school” of landscape painting is finally taking its place in the history of art.