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    300 years
    "Solkin 1982" Is linked to these Works of Art
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    Capucins at Gensano (The Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery at Genzano)

    Capucins at Gensano (The Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery at Genzano)
    Capucins at Gensano (The Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery at Genzano)
    Capucins at Gensano (The Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery at Genzano)
    Rhode Island Museum of Art, School of Design, Providence
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Capucins at Gensano (The Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery at Genzano)
    Date
    1754
    Medium
    Black and white chalks and stump on fadad wove blue paper
    Dimensions
    Metric: 287 x 422 mm
    Imperial: 11 15/16 x 16 5/8 in.
    Collection
    Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    70.118.60
    Wilson Online Reference
    D313
    Description
    The view is from the terrace of the Capuchin monastery near the hilltop town of Genzano about 20 kilometers south west of Rome. Monks are playing bowls on the terrace. In the middle distance is the Palazzo Sforza Cesarini with the southern end of Lake Nemi to its left and a view of Monte Circeo and the Mediterranean beyond. Next to the palazzo are the church and bell tower of Santa Maria della Cima.
    Exhibited
    London, Agnews, January 1958, Water-colours and Drawings (31); Sutton & Clements 1968, vol. 2, p. 28, fig. 27; London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (47)
    Provenance
    Commissioned 1754 by William Legge 2nd Earl of Dartmouth; thence by descent to the 8th Earl of Dartmouth; Christie's London, 29 January 1954 (17); Agnews, London; anonymous gift to Rhode Island Museum of Art, 1970
    Signature/inscription
    See 'Mount Inscriptions'
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Inscribed: 57
    Mount inscriptions
    [1] Signed in black chalk on coloured border, lower left corner: R. Wilson f. 1754.
    [2] Inscribed in ink on cartellino: Capucins at | Gensano.
    [3] Inscribed in black chalk on coloured border, lower right corner: No. 15
    Subject
    Genzano (Genzano di Roma since 1873) is one of the Castelli Romani. The Cesarini family gained control of it in 1564 and Livia Cesarini, last of the line, was the wife of Francesco II Sforza, after both of whom the palazzo depicted took its name. The volcanic Lake Nemi, surrounded by the wooded slopes of the Alban Hills, was spectacularly sited and much praised by ancient writers including Virgil and Ovid. It was also renowned for the sanctuary of the goddess Diana on its northern shore. Depicted on numerous occasions by Wilson, in the 17th century it had featured much in the paintings of his mentors, Claude Lorrain and Gaspard Dughet.
    Related Drawings
    D280/6 Italian Sketchbook p. 7(r), Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    Related Prints
    E72/6 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, The Lake of Nemi, The British Museum
    Related Paintings
    P72 Lake Nemi and Genzano from the Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. That painting varies from this drawing in viewpoint and in many details.
    Critical commentary
    One of a major series of drawings commissioned by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801) in 1754, of which 25 are known to survive. The Dartmouth set is the most important group of the artist's finished compositions on paper. Originally numbering 68, the drawings were highly prized by the earl and much admired by connoisseurs of the day including William Lock of Norbury, and the artists John Hoppner and Joseph Farington. Hoppner said of them, 'they were such as the Greeks would have made & put all others at a distance' and Farington was almost certainly referring to them when he characterised Wilson's drawings as having 'all the qualities of his pictures except the colour.' Drawings from the set are distinguished by a white mount with lilac wash border, on which the artist attached a small white label, bearing the title of the work.
    Bibliography
    Farington Diary, vol. 7, p. 2775 (1 June 1806); Farington Biographical Note p. 12; Ford 1948, fig. 6, p. 345, no. 15; Ford 1951, p. 61, no. 64; WGC, p. 209, pl. 95b; Illustrated London News, 11 January 1958; 'Selection II - British Watercolours and Drawings', Bulletin of the Rhode Island School of Design, vol. 58, no. 6, 1972, no. 7, pl. 7; Apollo, June 1974, pl. 13; Solkin 1978, p. 406, pl. 22; Solkin 1982, pp. 170-171; Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 267 under cat. 195; Richard Wilson and the British Arcadia: exh. cat. with introductory essay by Andrew Wilton and entries by Ann Guité New York 2010, under no. 6, unpaginated
    More Information
    This is one of 20 views of the Environs of Rome referred to by Thomas Jenkins in a letter dated 1 June 1754. Of these only no. 1 is missing from the serial numbers recorded in the lower right corner of each. All the Dartmouth drawings have numbers in graphite on the back, ranging (with gaps) from 23 to 61, thus supporting the total of 68 given by Farington. The mounts of all the surviving Dartmouth drawings, with their lilac wash borders, were made by Wilson or under his direction, perhaps by Jenkins.

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Italian Sketchbook p. 7(r), Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, The Lake of Nemi, The British Museum

    Paintings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Lake Nemi and Genzano from the Terrace of the Capuchin Monastery, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983
    • Birmingham City Art Gallery, 17 November 1948 - 9 January 1949
    • London, Tate Gallery, 22 January - 14 March 1949

    Biographies

    • William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801)
    • Thomas Jenkins (1722-1798)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Joseph Farington, The Diary of Joseph Farington, July 1793 - December 1821
    • David Solkin, 'Some New Light on the Drawings of Richard Wilson'
    • Brinsley Ford, The Drawings of Richard Wilson
    • Anthony M. Clark and Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text
    • Brinsley Ford, 'The Dartmouth Collection of Drawings by 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
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