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The West Belvedere at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli (Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, Italy)
Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery
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Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
The West Belvedere at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli (Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, Italy)
c.1765
Oil on canvas
43.8 x 35 cm [sight size]
17 1/4 x 13 3/4 in. [sight size]
00305
P138C
A landscape with a white dwelling on two arches in the foreground, with two figures and goats
RA Old Masters 1882 (32 - Strada Nomentana); London, Grosvenor Gallery 1885; Brighton 1920 (2 or 34 - Strada Nomentana); Birmingham 1948-9 (43); London 1949 (42); Gloucester 2014 (unnumbered); Croome 2019
Richard Hulse (1727-1805), Blackheath; Benjamin Booth; Revd. R.S. Booth; Lady Ford; Richard Ford; Sir F. Clare Ford; Captain Richard Ford, sold Christie's 14 June 1929 (24 - Strada Nomentana or Villa Adriana), bt with a black and white drawing of the subject by Spink (520 guineas); Stanley Marling, Amberley, Gloucester; bequeathed to Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery 1963
Signed in monogram lower right: RW [the R inverted]
[1] Verso upper left print and typescript exhibition label: Cheltenham Twenty-first Literary Festival [...] Exhibition at Cheltenham Art Gallery | Fine Paintings from Gloucestershire Houses and other Sources | 5th to 17th July 1965 | Catalogue No. 35
[2] Verso upper centre manuscript [K. Garlick, Birmingham]: Wilson | Hadrian's Villa | Lent by S. Marling Esq.
[3] Verso lower centre on horizontal stretcher member manuscript and printed: Christie's | June 14th | 1929 | RICHARD WILSON, R.A. | 24 STRADA NOMENTANA, OR VILLA ADRIANA | A landscape, with a white villa on two red arches; two | figures and goats in the foreground | 17 1/2 in. by 13 3/4 in. | Exhibited at Burlington House, 1882 | Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery 1885 | A black and white drawing of this subject, by the artist, | is sold with the picture | 43
[4] Verso right corner of lower horizontal stretcher, ink: 96
[5] Verso lower right partly obliterated and illegible typescript
The spectacular site of Tivoli was familiar to all travellers on the Grand Tour through the Roman poets, especially Virgil and Horace. It was also a favourite sketching-ground for artists from the 17th century onwards, a tradition that deeply influenced Wilson. Hadrian's Villa was a complex of palaces, baths, temples, libraries, state rooms and service quarters, which included the greatest Roman example of the Alexandrine garden, recreating a sacred landscape. Built as a retreat for the Emperor Hadrian (76-138 AD) it fell into ruins over the ages. Recently the precise location has been identified by Jonathan Yarker as the West Belvedere of the Villa with a farmhouse above built by Sebastiano Soliardi.
D170 The West Belvedere at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
D170A Hadrian's Villa, Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery
E42 Michael 'Angelo' Rooker after Wilson In the Villa Adriana Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven and other impressions
E80 Celia Lucy Brightwell after Wilson Hadrian's Villa, The British Museum and other impressions
E83 James Carter after Wilson, Hadrian's Villa The British Museum and other impressions
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Giovanni Battista Piranesi made plans of the villa and engraved buildings and sculpture there. The site was also recorded by Robert Adam, Charles-Louis Clerisseau and other near-contemporaries of Wilson.
Art 305
Booth Notes Doc. 8; Booth Notes Doc. 9 (15); WGC, p. 200 pl. 80b (version 2)
Dimensions framed: 64.2 x 55 cm (25 1/4 x 21 5/8in.) Relined. This painting is in good condition and cleaner than P137A The Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli, Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery. Treated by Miss S.Wood 1976. Surveyed by Area Museum Service in 1997.
Kate Lowry has noted: Convincing building, sky and figures. Under UV no retouches were visible.
15/11/2021