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Tall Trees
Private Collection, England / Photograph by John Hammond
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Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Tall Trees
c.1752-53 (undated)
Black chalk and stump with white highlights on beige paper
401 x 267 mm
15 3/4 x 10 1/2in.
Private Collection, England
BB48
D202
Brighton 1920; London 1934 (1138); Exeter 1946 (7 - Tall Trees, Vale of Baiae); Birmingham 1948-49 (103); London 1949 (102); Arts Council 1951 (214); Paris 1953 (89); London 1968 (660); Kenwood 1974 (149); Conwy 2009 (9); Tercentenary 2014 (29)
Mercati, Marylebone; bt Benjamin Booth October 1788; his son, the Revd S. Booth; his sisters, Elizabeth Booth and Marianne Booth, later Lady Ford; thence by descent
[1] MS inscription by Benjamin Booth: I purchased this drawing of Mercati in Marylebone High St, Oct. 1788. B.B.
[2] MS inscription: Marianne
D285 River Scene by Moonlight (Lake Scene), Private Collection, England
Drawn in Italy at a time when Wilson was collecting a stock of motifs for future inclusion in his landscape paintings and under the influence of contemporary French artists working in Rome, a period during which he evolved a confident and elegant style. This is emphasised by the generous dimensions of the sheet which imply that the artist considered such studies important.
Booth MS; Cook & Wedderburn, Vol. 16, The Two Paths, 1859, pp. 414-15; Commemorative Catalogue 1934 (583, pl. CXLV); Ford 1951, frontispiece and pp. 27, 51; Festival 1951, p. 68; Walpole Society 1998-I, p. 20, BB48; Lord 2009, p. 50, no. 9, repr. p. 36; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 225
John Ruskin was later to express a low opinion of Wilson's tree technique, which he described as 'two pronged barbarousness', adding that he would be found 'continually laughing at Wilson's tree painting; not because Wilson could not paint but because he had never looked at a tree.' (The Two Paths, 1859)
02/01/2018