Wilson Online Reference
Field
Name
George Field, 1777-1854
Connection to Wilson
Collector
Biographical Details
George Field was a manufacturer of artists' colours and chemist who owned ten works by or attributed to Wilson and a version of Tivoli: Villa of Maecenas, which was lot 68 in his posthumous sale (Fosters, 20 June 1855). He also became something of an authority on the artist's life, collecting information and anecdotes for Wright's biography, Wright 1824 Some Account of the Life of Richard Wilson Esq., R.A., collected and arranged by T. Wright, Esq. To which are added various Observations, (p. 71) and for The Somerset House Gazette, XLV 1824 (p. 298). In some unpublished notes (Field MSS, Chromatopoia II, s.v. W) made later in his life, Field characterised Wilson as 'the greatest of Landscape Painters' but one who also led an unfortunate life, 'Compelled for support to paint hastily and beneath his Genius, he issued accomplished sketches instead of Pictures in which aiming only at effects, slighting Execution in proportion as his necessities increased and his powers of hand and eye declined, which altho' full of the fine feeling and high intelligence of his art, afforded imitation to inferior hands' (see Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting by Martin Postle and Robin Simon, p. 151).