Reynolds assumed that Italy had produced the greatest painters but he suggests in Discourse Fourteen (1790) that simply because Italy is seen as 'destined to the production of men of great genius' there is a 'general readiness and disposition' in favour of the Roman 'graduates in the great historical style' which may not be justified; Mengs and Battoni are examples he gives of people who were praised more because of the reputation of Italian painting than because of the substance of what they had achieved ( Reynolds, Discourses, p.248).
Waagen commented on the decline of taste among English collectors of painting of the Italian school and what he saw as the lack of proper discrimination in collections formed by the end of the eighteenth century.
The Dulwich Gallery is an example of an eighteenth century collection, and one which includes examples of the work which Ruskin is most concerned to depreciate.