Gypsies near the Entrance to a Wood

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Anglesey Abbey, National Trust

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Artist

Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) and Studio

Title

Gypsies near the Entrance to a Wood

Date

c.1771 (undated)

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

Metric: 32.4 x 40.6 cm
Imperial: 12 3/4 x 16 in.

Collection

Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge. To license images click here.

Accession Number

AA/P/011

Wilson Online Reference

P176A

Description

Two female gypsy figures on the left have halted on a path, overlooking Rome on the right, seen in the distance on the plain below. Another rests by the edge of the road to the right, overlooking the view. To one side is a shady wood, to the right of the path there is a row of trees and on the left a large gnarled tree.

Exhibited

RA 1779 (353 - a version); with Leggatt London, June- August 1947 (45 A Woody Road Scene: Sunset)

Provenance

A.P. Humphrey sale, Christie's 4 October 1946 (72), bt Leggatt; Lord Fairhaven, Anglesey Abbey.

Signature/inscription

Unsigned.
Faint inscription on milestone lower left: XV

Subject

David Solkin has noted that by comparison with most of Wilson's earlier Italian landscapes, this painting is rather less classical and more purely picturesque in subject as well as in its mode of presentation. This is Italy as a modern foreign land and not, at least in any overt sense, Italy as the setting for ruins of classical antiquity. Together with this change of thematic emphasis comes a different kind of pictorial language, more closely allied with the Dutch tradition of views of common nature than to the grandiose productions of the Roman school.

Related Prints

E50 Samuel Alken after Wilson, The Gypsies, 1783, The British Museum (1877,0811.497) plus other impressions
E72/5 Hastings after Wilson, The Gypsies, The British Museum (1854,0708.62)

Versions

See 'Links' tab

Critical commentary

The National Trust calalogue entry notes that the modest quality of the painting, together with the number of recorded versions of the compositon, make it uncertain whether it is an autograph repetition, based on the prime version of the drawing with variations, of what was anyway a late composition - or a later copy by another hand. Solkin accepts its authenticity.

Previous Cat/Ref Nos

7(60)

Bibliography

WGC, pp. 199-200 under pl. 79b (2)

Link to WG Constable Archive Record

WGC/1/1/88

More Information

Anglesey Abbey, its gardens and and its contents, including this painting, were endowed and left to the National Trust on his death by Huttlestone Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven.

Condition/Conservation

Satisfactory condition but with discoloured varnish. Kate Lowry has noted: Colours seem to be too bright for Wilson; sky is very blue and the trees very green. The standing figures are also brightly painted and the seated figure is out of scale.

Gypsies near the Entrance to a Wood

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