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Ariccia - I
Tate, London 2014
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Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Ariccia - I
c.1752-56 (undated)
Oil on canvas
49.6 x 63.5 cm
19 1/2 x 25 in.
N01097
P46
Captain Hamilton sale, bt Thomas Hollis; presented by Thomas Hollis to the British Museum, 1761; transferred 1880 with three other pictures and presented by the Trustees of the British Museum to the National Gallery; transferred to Tate Gallery
Signed in monogram to right of boulder, right side: RW [R in reverse]; no inscription
Ann Baxter records 16 x 20 threads per sq cm. The outline of the right-hand tree has been changed. Two distinct layers of highly pigmented blue were found in the sky, an upper one of fine ultramarine and a lower one of Prussian blue. The red ground is probably the artist's priming, containing red earth, white and black. Overall tonality is very dark.
Located between the lakes of Nemi and Albano on the Via Appia Nuova, southeast of Rome, Ariccia was celebrated for its groves, thought to have been the hunting grounds of the goddess Diana. The area was a haunt of Gaspard Dughet.
D326 Ariccia near Rome, The British Museum (1881,0212.24)
D224 View at Ariccia, near Albano, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
D282 A Church at Ariccia, Private Collection, England and other versions
E72/11 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, View of Lareci near Rome, The British Museum (1854,0708.68) and other impressions
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Gaspard Dughet, Landscape in the Roman Campagna, c.1670 (probably in Corsini collection, Rome, by 1787), National Gallery, London (NG 68)
T. Hollis, unpublished Diary, 26 October 1761; Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, 1780, I, 222; WGC, p. 193, under pl. 67b; Solkin 1982, under 89; Wilson and Europe 2014, fig.66
Ariccia and Palazzo Chigi
On 26 October1761 Hollis wrote in his Diary: 'Mr Wilson, the Landskip Painter breakfasted with me, and thanked me, handsomely, for having presented a Landskip picture of his, which I had bought at Capt. Hamilton's sale of pictures [Prestage & Hobbs 21.2.61(42)] for £10-10. to the British Museum.'
This painting differs from P46A, Private Collection, England, in having figures on a large tree trunk in the right foreground and in the middle group of trees being more prominent.
Dimensions in frame: 63 x 78 cm. In poor condition. Foreground is covered with severe cracking apparently due to the use of a bitumenous earth varnish. Visual examination and sampling by Ann Baxter, 1982. Ann Baxter questions the attribution to Wilson despite the signature.

Kate Lowry has noted:
Linen canvas with unusual weave similar to P60 Temple of the Minerva Medici, Private Collection, England. Red ground, probably the artists own priming.