Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe

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Victoria & Albert Museum, London

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Artist

Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)

Title

Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe

Date

1752

Medium

Black chalk on white paper

Dimensions

Metric: 188 x 130 mm (volume: 203 x 143 mm)
Imperial: 8 x 5 5/8 in.

Collection

Victoria & Albert Museum, London. To license image, click here

Accession Number

E.3586-1922

Wilson Online Reference

D53/35

Description

Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and Queen of Thebes, is shown trying to protect the last of her seven daughters from the arrows of Apollo and Diana.

Exhibited

London, Cardiff and New Haven 1982-83 (21); Tercentenary 2014 (16)

Provenance

Bt about 1922 from Miss Alice J. Bowles

Related Paintings

P90 The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
P90D Studio of Wilson, Apollo destroying the Children of Niobe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Critical commentary

Page 35 from a sketchbook of 78 leaves containing Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752. The figure of Niobe is taken from the famous Antique sculptural group originally in the Villa Medici, Rome but from the 1770s in the Uffizi, Florence. The figures appear in a similar pose in P90 The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, Yale Center for British Art, which Wilson exhibited in 1760. A few years before his journey to Italy the Revd Joseph Spence had discussed the marble group at length and illustrated the central figures in his book, Polymetis. However in Wilson's first version of the subject P90A, painted in Rome perhaps as early as 1754, the group was composed differently. As noted by Robin Simon, Wilson's associates there, J.J. Winckelmann and Johannes Wiedewelt, made a particular study of the Niobe group, together with the other sculptures in the Villa Medici, in 1756-58. On the opposite page (p. 34 verso) is a framed rapidly-drawn view of the hill-town of Sermoneta, famed then as now for its connection with Lucrezia Borgia and inscribed by Wilson, 'Sermonetta'.

Bibliography

J. Spence, Polymetis, Book 2, London 1747, pp. 96-100 and 111; WGC, pp. 160-63, pl. 20a; Solkin 1982, pp. 152, 157; Wilson and Europe 2014, pp. 216-17; F. Nicolai, 'The 1584 Purchase Contract for the Medici Group of Niobe Sculptures', Burlington Magazine, vol. 162, no. 1402, January 2020, pp. 26-31

More Information

Only two sketchbooks by Wilson have survived - the present one (D53-D53/81) and D280-D280/33 Italian Sketchbook - Drawings, 1754, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Updated by Compiler

15/07/2021

Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe

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