Tivoli: Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna - I (Tivoli and the…

Tivoli: Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna - I (Tivoli and the…
Tivoli: Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna - I (Tivoli and the…
Tivoli: Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna - I (Tivoli and the…
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
Tivoli: Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna - I (Tivoli and the Roman Campagna with a Man and Woman)
Date
c.1765
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Metric: 102.6 x 127.6 cm
Imperial: 40 3/8 x 50 1/2 in.
Accession Number
03.606
Wilson Online Reference
P142C
Description
The view is westward down the gorge of the River Aniene, with the Roman Campagna in the distance. On the cliff to the left are the circular Temple of the Sibyl and the Temple of Tiburtius. The man in the foreground has two dogs and seems to be holding the woman's knitting needles. At her feet lies a ball of thread with a line running up some of her skirt. In the middle distance are an artist and onlooker.
Exhibited
RA 1777 (378); RA Old Masters, 1879 (43, lent Hawley); Toronto, Art Gallery, November 1935; University of Pennsylvania 15 December 1960 - 15 February 1961; Detroit Institute of Art 26 March - 7 May 1961; North Carolina Museum of Art, Tercentenary Exhibition, 23 March - 28 April 1963 (TL.63.5.49)
Provenance
Benjamin Booth; Lady Ford; Ford sale Christie's London, 30-31 May 1809 (possibly 65, not sold, or 860); Joseph Gillott, Birmingham; William Angerstein (1811-1897); Sir Henry James Hawley 4th Bart, Brighton; Orrock-Linton sale Christie's 25-27 April 1895 (281 - An Italian Landscape with buildings and figures. From Lady Ford's Collection), withdrawn; J.R. Saunders, London; Mrs S.D. Warren; American Art Association, New York 8-9 January 1903 (117), bt S.P. Avery ( = bt in); bequest of Mrs Susan Cornelia Warren, 1903
Signature/inscription
Illegible marks on the tabernacle in the left foreground may have been legible as a 'W' in the past
Techniques and materials
There is a rococo feel in the colours and costume of the figures. The distance is filmy and sensitive. Some underdrawing (or underpainting) is visible in the left fork of the left tree to the right. Some areas of the trees are painted over reserves. Attention has been paid to the subsidiary figures and the horizon line has been brought down in the usual way. Architecture and trees to the upper left are rather skimpy. There are no birds in the sky.
Verso inscriptions
[1] Red wax seal impression : FORD
Labels
Verso upper stretcher Old label: 122
Stretcher l.r.c.: North Carolina Museum of Art Tercentenary Exhibition label, 23 March - 28 April 1963
Stretcher u.l.c.: Old museum label
Stretcher u.r.c.: North Carolina loan label
Related Drawings
D165 Landscape with a Palace at the Summit of a Mountain, Victoria & Albert Museum (Dyce.656)
D244 The Falls at Tivoli, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Related Prints
E15 William Byrne after Wilson, Tivoli: The Temple of the Sibyl and the Campagna (untitled), 1765, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven (B1984.21.429) and other impressions
Versions
See 'Links' tab
Related Works by Other Artists
Gaspard Dughet Imaginary Landscape with Buildings in Tivoli, 1670, National Gallery London (NG 98)
Critical commentary
The painting's size and the fact that it is the only known version with more than one dog correspond with the description in Booth's list of his own collection: '50 Sibyll's Temple Tivoli & Este's Villa with the Campagna Man & Woman & Greyhounds 50 -40'.
Bibliography
Booth Notes Doc. 5, p. 2; Booth Notes Doc. 9 (50); WGC, p. 222-23, pl. 115a (version 5); Herrmann 1973, p. 60; R. Dorment, British Painting in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1986, p. 427
Link to WG Constable Archive Record
Condition/Conservation
Old varnish removed and new applied December 1945, December 1947, January 1950; rotted canvas relined with wax by Finlayson December 1962.
Updated by Compiler
2021-11-25 00:00:00