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    "Ford, Richard" Is linked to these Works of Art
    of 43

    Italian River Landscape with a broken Bridge

    Italian River Landscape with a broken Bridge
    Italian River Landscape with a broken Bridge
    Italian River Landscape with a broken Bridge
    Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Italian River Landscape with a broken Bridge
    Date
    c.1780? (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on mahogany panel
    Dimensions
    Metric: 41.3 x 53.3 cm
    Imperial: 16 1/4 x 21 in.
    Collection
    Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. To license images click here.
    Accession Number
    PD.2-1948
    Wilson Online Reference
    P66C
    Description
    A river spanned by a broken bridge flows around tree-covered slopes. Above the river, a temple can be seen. Beyond a plain runs back towards a distant mountain. At the left a rocky bluff crowned with trees rises from the bank, filling the foreground. Three figures stand in the foreground and two horses with men descend from right to left.
    Exhibited
    Brighton 1920 (24 - Landscape)
    Provenance
    Benjamin Booth; The Revd R.S. Booth; Lady Ford (née Marianne Booth); Richard Ford; Sir Francis Clare Ford; Captain Richard Ford; his sale, Christie's, 14 June 1929 (18 - A River Scene), bt Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd (#7038, 780 guineas); 18 June 1929 sold to Frederick John Nettlefold; presented by F.J. Nettlefold to the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1948
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    There is underpaint to left centre. Blobby, fluid brush-strokes are much in evidence, for example in the clouds.
    Collectors' marks
    [1] Verso: Impression of heraldic seal in red wax, mid-eighteenth century?
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Top stretcher, white chalk: BAS 49
    [2] Lower centre left, white chalk: R
    Labels
    [1] Verso: Agnews 6900
    [2] Verso: Agnews[?] MS square label with corners cut off: A RIVER SCENE [/] BY [/] RICHARD WILSON, R.A.
    [3] Verso: Christie's stencil, indecipherable
    [4] Verso top stretcher: F.J. Nettlefold Esq.
    Related Prints
    E72/27 Thomas Hastings Untitled (Landscape Capriccio on the Via Aemilia), The British Museum (1854,0708.84) and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Works by Other Artists
    This is closely related to Claude Lorrain's Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, 1663, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, in Wilson's day at the Palazzo Colonna, Rome
    Critical commentary
    A strong visual message of the work is the history of declining ancient civilisation and its potential application to eighteenth-century Britain.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    4030
    Bibliography
    Booth Notes Doc. 9 (23); Grundy & Roe 1938, pp. 152-53 - River Scene, with Temple and Figures, repr. col.; WGC, pp. 92, 218, pl. 106b; Sutton & Clements 1968, vol. 2, p. 31, fig. 32; J.W. Goodison, Catalogue of Paintings in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, vol. 3, British School, Cambridge University Press 1977, pp. 285-87
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/124
    More Information
    Label title Italian Landscape with River and Temple
    Condition/Conservation
    Covered in old varnish, which makes the blues of the sky deeper. Some surface scratches. No backboard. Verso: edges roughened top and bottom as if perhaps part of something else. Battened; dimensions without battens: 41 x 53.3.cm.
    Kate Lowry has noted: Oil on panel. Mahogany panel about 10mm thick and reinforced by two cross battens attached to the reverse, which may be later additions. Upper and lower reverse edges are quite battered, suggesting the panel may have been used for something else before painting. Panel has quite a pronounced convex bow along the grain. Smooth white ground. The painting has some good Wilson features such as the sky painted down to the distant mountain, reserves for the tree foliage and foreground, typical figure group in foreground and fairly good figures in the middle distance. There is however a very strange yellow tone in the distant landscape.

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Untitled (Landscape Capriccio on the Via Aemilia), The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Landscape Capriccio on the Via Aemilia, with the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli and the broken Bridge at Narni, Private Collection, England
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Landscape Capriccio on the Via Aemilia, with the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli and the Broken Bridge at Narni, Private Collection, New York
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Broken Bridge at Narni, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

    Exhibitions

    • Brighton, Fine Art Galleries, 28 February - 2 May 1920

    Biographies

    • Benjamin Booth (1732-1807)
    • Richard Ford (1796-1858)
    • The Revd Richard Salwey Booth (1762-1807)
    • Elizabeth Booth (1763-1819)
    • Sir Francis Clare Ford (1828-1899)
    • Captain Richard Ford (1860-1940)
    • Frederick John Nettlefold (1867-1949)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • Denys Sutton & Ann Clements, An Italian Sketchbook by Richard Wilson, RA: Drawings made by the Artist in Rome and its Environs in the Year 1754
    • C. Reginald Grundy & F. Gordon Roe, A Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings in the Collection of Frederick John Nettlefold
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 9: List of Wilson's Landscapes with Sizes and former Owners
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