Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 13

Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 13
Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 13
Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 13
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 13
Date
1752
Medium
Black chalk on white paper
Dimensions
Metric: 188 x 130 mm (volume: 203 x 143 mm)
Imperial: 8 x 5 5/8 in.
Accession Number
E.3586-1922
Wilson Online Reference
D53/13
Description
View of a seashore with a gigantic naked figure lying in the right foreground, surrounded by miniature people
Provenance
Bt about 1922 from Miss Alice J. Bowles
Signature/inscription
Numbered below the image lower right: 18
Page numbered upper right corner: 13
Subject
It has been suggested that Wilson's inspiration for this curious composition came from Swift's Gulliver's Travels or alternatively the description by the ancient author Philostratus (Imagines, II, 22) of Hercules among the Pygmies (see Bibliography, J. K. Welcher & R. Joseph and R. Halsband respectively).
Related Drawings
D96 Gulliver bound by the Lilliputians, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
Related Prints
E60/8 John Whessell after Wilson, Studies & Designs: View of a Seashore with a naked Figure lying in the right Foreground, The British Museum
E60/8A John Whessell after Wilson, Studies & Designs: View of a Seashore with a naked Giant lying in the right Foreground, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
Critical commentary
The political satire, Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift was first published in 1726 with the title, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. Immediately popular, it was amended in 1735 and remained a universal favourite throughout the 18th century and beyond. D53/13 may illustrate Part 1, describing Gulliver's first voyage, when he is washed ashore after a shipwreck and finds himself the prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput. Alternatively the subject may be the classical one of Hercules among the Pygmies, which would accord witrh Wilson's known familiarity with ancient authors and explain the gigantic figure's nudity.
Bibliography
Solkin 1982, pp. 152, 157; J.K. Welcher & R. Joseph, 'Gulliverian Drawings by Richard Wilson' Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 18, no. 2 (Winter, 1984-1985), pp. 170-85; R. Halsband, 'Comments on "Gulliverian Drawings by Richard Wilson"', Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 19, no. 2 (Winter, 1985-1986), pp. 254-256.
More Information
Only two sketchbooks by Wilson have survived - the present one (D53-D53/81) and D280-D280/33 Italian Sketchbook - Drawings, 1754, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.