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Landscape with Vesuvius
Royal Academy of Arts, London
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Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Landscape with Vesuvius
Dated lower right: 1756
Black and white chalk on laid prepared light brown paper
96 x 98 mm
3 3/4 x 3 7/8 in.
03/1876
D250
Three men with two mules can be seen halted in a field before a volcano, beside a fourth figure who sits on a stone to the right
Tercentenary 2014 (49)
William Lock of Norbury; his sale, Sotheby's, London 3-7 May 1821 (386); William Esdaile (1758-1837); Wellesley sale 1866 (748)
Signed lower left: R.W.f.
Inscribed lower right: WE
[1] Recto lower right corner: William Esdaile (Lugt 2617)
D53/45 Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, p. 45
D249 Landscape with the Crater of Vesuvius, Royal Academy of Arts, London
E60/24 John Whessell after Wilson, Studies & Designs: Vesuvius, The British Museum
D250 and D249 both belonged to William Lock (1732-1810) who very probably visited Naples and the surrounding area with Wilson in 1752. Martin Postle has suggested that two such elegantly framed and presented pieces were created by the artist as a souvenir of their expedition to the crater of Vesuvius, also recorded in D53 Wilson's 1752 Sketchbook, Victoria and Albert Museum. The circular framing recurs on a larger scale in D338 A Skirmish in Rowing-Boats in the Bay of Baiae (Private Collection), which was also owned by Lock.
E.B. Jupp, Royal Academy Catalogue, vol. 1; WGC, p. 37; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 240