The White Monk - IV (Italian Landscape, with white Monk)

The White Monk - IV (Italian Landscape, with white Monk)
The White Monk - IV (Italian Landscape, with white Monk)
The White Monk - IV (Italian Landscape, with white Monk)
Museums Sheffield
title=Credit line
Artist
Ascribed to Wilson
Title
The White Monk - IV (Italian Landscape, with white Monk)
Date
Undated
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Metric: 66.8 x 82.3 cm
Imperial: 26 1/4 x 32 3/8 in.
Accession Number
VIS.358
Wilson Online Reference
P147A
Description
A sunlit river landscape is seen against voluminous clouds. On the left is a prominent boulder, against which rests a stick, with others on the ground nearby. There are two large trees and a feathery sapling with a single bird on the right, and in the left middle distance, a wooded cliff and promontory, on the edge of which is silhouetted a gabled chapel with religious figures in obeisance before it. A hilltop town and mountains are in the background and other buildings on the plain below.
Exhibited
London 1925 (27 - Italian Landscape: The White Monk); Manchester 1925 (65 - Italian Landscape - The White Monk); Brussels 1929 (198)
Provenance
Miss Bradley, Eastbourne; Frederick Anthony White, 170 Queen's Gate, Kensington; Christie's 28 April 1934 (155); bt J.G. Graves; given to Sheffield Museums, 1942
Signature/inscription
Signed on the rock left foreground: RW [monogram, the R reversed]
Related Drawings
D344 Banks of the Tiber 1757, Rhode Island Museum of Art, School of Design, Providence
Related Prints
E17 James Roberts after Wilson, The White Monk (Untitled), The British Museum and other impressions
E72/22 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, The White Monk, 1822, The British Museum (1854,0708.79) and other impressions
Related Paintings
P144 Richard Wilson, The White Monk - I, Toledo Museum of Art
P144A Wilson and Studio, The White Monk - I, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
NWP144E Ascribed to Wilson, The White Monk - I, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
P144F Richard Wilson, The White Monk - I, Private Collection
P145 Richard Wilson, The White Monk - II, The Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
P145A Richard Wilson, The White Monk - II, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
P145B Richard Wilson, The White Monk - II, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton
P146 Richard Wilson, The White Monk - III, Private Collection
P146A Richard Wilson, The White Monk - III, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
P146B Richard Wilson, The White Monk - III, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Critical commentary
P147 and P147A differ from other versions of The White Monk in having no seated figures or parasol in the right foreground. Of the three main variants of the subject, the present work is closest in composition to P144 The White Monk - I (Toledo Museum of Art), having a wayside shrine rather than a cross on the promontory and no buildings at the upper left. Martin Postle has recently suggested a more exact setting than previously acknowledged, e.g. by W.G. Constable, who recorded that it had sometimes been identified as Tivoli or a lower part of the Aniene gorge. Postle proposed the upper Aniene valley, looking east towards the Prenestini mountains and the rocky outcrops of Mentorella and Guadagnolo. This is an area associated historically with a chain of Benedictine monasteries, thus providing context for the presence of monks on the promontory.
Bibliography
WGC, p. 228; The Studio, January 1952
Link to WG Constable Archive Record
More Information
Frederick Anthony White was a wealthy industrialist and collector, for whom Norman Shaw designed 170, Queen's Gate, completed in 1889.
Updated by Compiler
2021-01-13 00:00:00