Wilson Online Reference
Whitley 1821-1837
Author
William Thomas Whitley
Title/Description
Art in England 1821-1837
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Country
UK
Date of Publication
1930
Printed/Manuscript
Secondary published
More Information
The sequel to Whitley 1800-1820. 372 pp. + eight monochrome illustrations. Wilson is mentioned on pp. 12, 15, 19, 22, 49, 95, 122, 127, 133, 135, 259 & 347.
Full Text
Noteworthy extracts from the text: [In 1821 ... John Glover (1767-1849) ... held a one-man exhibition in Newman Street where one critic recorded:] ' As a landscape painter Mr Glover stands in the first rank of British artists; and so conscious is he of his own powers that he has actually placed in the present exhibition one of the most beautiful pictures by Claude Lorraine and the best landscape by Wilson.' [p. 12] The third [interesting] sale [of 1821], by Sotheby, was of the collection of prints and drawings formed by William Lock, the elder, of Norbury Park, and containing, 'a numerous assembly of the works of Richard Wilson, R.A.' The Wilson drawings numbered 221, all Italian subjects, and were sold in lots for a sum total of £83. 8s. The principal lot, a sketch-book containing twenty drawings (all Italian) in bistre or black and white chalk, realized £3. 5s. William Lock the elder, who obtained the drawings from Wilson, died in 1810, and his son William Lock the younger, the reputed famous draughtsman, had lately sold the family seat, Norbury Park, with its well-known landscape-room painted by George Barret, R.A. [p. 15] In Farington's Diary the references to Wilson, though not infrequent, are slight; and he tells us nothing of the mysterious John Wilson, son of the landscape painter, who appealed to the Royal Academy for assistance in 1793 and 1796, and of whom there is no record except in the Academy Minutes. Yet Farington was a member of the Academy Council in 1796 when a grant of money was made to John Wilson. There is no record or tradition of Richard Wilson's marriage. [p. 22] Raeburn, who had a capital picture-gallery attached to his painting-room in York Place [Edinburgh], lent it in 1819, for the first exhibition of the Institution for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Scotland. The New Monthly Magazine, after remarking that the exhibition contained eighty-seven pictures by Old Masters and two each by Sir Joshua and Richard Wilson, speaks [ ...] of the owner of the Gallery in which they were shown. [p. 49] The Monthly Magazine published in May [1825] an article on the pictures at the Society of British Artists, and said that the strength of the exhibition was in its landscapes. 'Though', continued the critic, 'we cannot be so patriotically partial as to claim that we have yet actually produced a Claude (although we remember that we have had a Wilson) yet we have two landscape painters living at this time whose names will shed a lasting lustre over the English School' [Glover and Thomas Hofland]. [p. 95] Of David Seguier, the father of William and John, little has been recorded, except that he was 'merry and friendly' and that he assisted Richard Wilson in a time of need. [p. 122] Like Sir George Beaumont, [Lord de Tabley] was an amateur artist and had practised drawing and painting landscape under [Robert] Marris [1750-1827], Francis Vivares, and Paul Sandby. His father, Sir Peter Leicester, was also in his day a patron of the arts, and Richard Wilson was his guest in Cheshire when he painted the view of Tabley House and Park [P126] that was in Lord de Tabley's possession when he died. [p. 133]
Updated by Compiler
2020-03-12 00:00:00