Copenhagen House Tavern - Islington Fields

Copenhagen House Tavern - Islington Fields
Copenhagen House Tavern - Islington Fields
Copenhagen House Tavern - Islington Fields
National Galleries of Scotland / Photography by Antonia Reeve
title=Credit line
Artist
Ascribed to Wilson
Title
Copenhagen House Tavern - Islington Fields
Date
c.1749-50 (undated)
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Metric: 155 x 258 mm
Imperial: 6 1/8 x 10 1/8 in.
Accession Number
D 4662
Wilson Online Reference
D7
Exhibited
London 1925 (103); Manchester 1925 (44); Ipswich 1927 (106)
Provenance
Sir Edward Marsh; presented through the National Art-Collections Fund 1953
Signature/inscription
Unsigned; no inscription
Labels
An eighteenth-century label in the dossier originally adhered to the reverse is inscribed:
[1] Copenhagen House | Islington Fields. | Taken about the year 1780 by Richard Wilson. | Presented by him to his pupil [ ... ] Brooks
[2] In a different hand: 18364?
Critical commentary
Wilson painted sites near London, e.g. P131 On Hounslow Heath. He also drew them, e.g. D360 A View of Hounslow Heath, London, but never used watercolour, which he disliked as a medium. As Baker has remarked, the style of D7 thus seems incompatible with what is known of his draughtsmanship. In 1780 he was about to retreat from London to Wales on account of ill health, which throws the accuracy of the label verso into doubt. However, it is possible that before leaving he might have presented drawings to a former pupil, such as the shadowy William Brooks, who is known to have exhibited 15 landscapes (and two subjects from Thomson's Seasons) at the Royal Academy, beginning in 1780. It has also been suggested that D7 might be very loosely connected with the British landscapes of Thomas Jones. But its poor condition hinders any positive assessment of its authorship.
Bibliography
Baker 2011, p. 415
Condition/Conservation
Inlaid
Updated by Compiler
2019-11-12 00:00:00