Commissioned by the 6th Earl of Coventry; [...] Captain Richard Ford; Mrs Richard Ford

 

[1] Ink in a later hand: Croome Lord Coventry's.

 

 

 

P83 Croome Court, Worcestershire, Private Collection, England

A study for P83 Croome Court, Worcestershire, the sheet seems to have been cut down at some point - the far right of the final scene is missing and the drawing seems to have been cropped right along the edge of Croome Court. On the ridge to the left of the house is the proposed classical church, which is very different from the Gothic building eventually constructed and visible in P83. When Wilson executed this study, the church was not built and the design had not been finalised between Brown and Lord Coventry. They had planned a classical church with a portico and columns but this was eventually scrapped. It would have been similar to the chapel at Compton Verney, which Brown designed in the late 1770s. At some point Wilson must have seen designs for or a description of the final church as shown in P83. It was not built until the early 1760s and not consecrated until 1763.
Solkin has remarked how the study clearly distinguishes between its two sources of visual inspiration - the Netherlandish and Roman traditions of landscape composition. Thus while the pencil lines, drawn on the spot, describe a Dutch type of river scene, this has then been worked up in the studio through the addition of a Claudean framing tree and extensive modelling in black chalk, stump and white highlights.

Ford 1951 p.62, no. 72; WGC pp. 43. 71, 87, 88, 111, 149, 173, pl. 33b; Solkin 1982, pp. 196-97