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Ariccia - I (La Riccia, near Albano, Italy)
Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery
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Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Ariccia - I (La Riccia, near Albano, Italy)
c.1752-56 (undated)
Oil on canvas
53 x 80.9 cm
20 7/8 x 31 7/8 in.
00302
P46B
On the left a road runs uphill through a wood towards distant buildings. On the right are framing trees and a rocky outcrop with a cave below. Three figures are seen at its mouth and a prominent milestone stands to their left. A dead branch lies in the right foreground and the scene is set against a bright cloudy sky above.
Gloucester 2014 (unnumbered)
E.H. Robson; Stanley Marling, J.P., Littleworth House, Amberley, Gloucestershire; bequeathed to Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery, 1963
Unsigned; no inscription
The effect is dark overall, with a dull varnish. There is a pink ground under the sky, which is empty apart from the clouds.
Located between the lakes of Nemi and Albano on the Via Appia Nuova, south-east 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 Wilson's seventeenth-century exemplar, Gaspard Dughet.
D224 View at Ariccia, near Albano, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
D282 A Church at Ariccia, Private Collection, England
D282A Landscape near Rome, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
D326 Ariccia near Rome, The British Museum (1881,0212.24)
E72/11 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, View of Lareci near Rome, The British Museum (1854,0708.68) and other impressions
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P87 Ariccia - II, Collection of the Earl of Pembroke, Wilton House, Wiltshire
Differs in detail from P46 and has three figures in the cave mouth, approximating it to P46A.The middle figure just inside the cave is wearing a brimmed hat and receiving something from the figure outside. They may intended as children. The figures themselves are roughly painted but the distance is sensitive and specific. W.G. Constable described this painting as a somewhat heavy-handed repetition.
WGC, p. 193, pl. 67b (2)
Dimensions framed: 80.5 x 108 cm. The gilded classical frame is damaged, especially in the upper left corner. Kate Lowry has noted: Paint film covered by a thick discoloured varnish layer and surface dirt. UV examination shows some retouching over varnish along lower edge. A pink ground is visible beneath the sky tone and around foliage. Foreground figures are poor quality even for Wilson, but distant monastery and foliage are good.
09/02/2021