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Lake Nemi with two Friars
Private Collection, England / Photograph by John Hammond
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Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Lake Nemi with two Friars
Dated 1768
Oil on canvas
49.5 x 71.8 cm
19 1/2 x 28 1/4 in.
Private Collection, England
BB26
P159
The view is from the southern shores of Lake Nemi and includes the town of Genzano on the left with Nemi in the distance on the extreme right. Beyond and to the left of Nemi, is the peak of Monte Cavo.
SA 1768 (190); BI 1814 (170 - Lake Nemi); BI 1851 (139); RA 1881-82 (45); London, Grosvenor Gallery, A Century of British Art from 1737 to 1837, 1887-88 (180); Guildhall 1908 (47); Brighton 1920 (20 - Lake of Albano); London 1925 (52); London 1934 (181 - Lake Albano); Exeter 1946 (61 - Lake Albano); Birmingham 1948-49 (24); London 1949 (23); Leicester 1953 (80); on loan to Kenwood, 1959-60; London 1968 (20); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (129); Conwy 2009 (23); Weston 2011 (23); Gainsborough House 2014 (unnumbered)
Sir George Beaumont by 1768 - perhaps bt directly from Wilson; Benjamin Booth; the Revd R.S. Booth; Lady Ford; Richard Ford; Sir Francis Clare Ford; John G. Ford; Capt. Richard Ford; Sir Brinsley Ford; by descent
Signed and dated with monogram lower left: RW [the R reversed] 1768
D28 Two Friars, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
D221 Lake Nemi with Two Friars, Victoria & Albert Museum (DYCE.643)
E72/3 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Lake of Albano, [sic] The British Museum
E72/3A Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Lake Albano, [sic] The British Museum
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[1] Francis Towne (1739-1816): The Lake of Nemi, watercolour, 1781, The British Museum (Nn,3.4)
[2] Joseph Wright of Derby, Lake Nemi, 1790-95, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven.
The view was painted by many British artists after Wilson, including Thomas Jones and William Pars.
This is one of several versions of this composition. Wilson is looking back to earlier Italian compositions, here enlivened by the variety of buildings on the left and the presence of the friars in the foreground. Wandering friars would have been a common sight in Italy but they are here employed so as to enliven the foreground of the picture and to present a contemplative focus for the underlying order of the landscape. Although Booth referred to the composition as 'Lake Gensano ... Nemi in the distance', Hastings, when he etched it, called it 'Lake Albano' (see Related Prints).
Booth Notes Doc. 9 (35); Commemorative Catalogue 1934 (102, pl. XXXIX); WGC, pp. 73, 91-3, 207, pl. 94b; Solkin 1982, p. 235, no. 129; Egerton 1990, pp. 185-86; Lord 2009, p. 59, no.232; Williams 2011, pp. 34-35, repr.
09/11/2018