View of a Country House and Lake (The Thames looking towards Syon…

View of a Country House and Lake (The Thames looking towards Syon…
View of a Country House and Lake (The Thames looking towards Syon…
View of a Country House and Lake
(The Thames looking towards Syon…
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
View of a Country House and Lake (The Thames looking towards Syon House)
Date
c.1758-65 (undated)
Medium
Black, red and white chalk and stump on beige laid paper inlaid onto cream paper
Dimensions
Metric: 325 x 527 mm
Imperial: 12 3/4 x 20 3/4 in.
Accession Number
D.1967.WS.102
Wilson Online Reference
D347
Description
A fisherman, woman and child with rod are prominently silhouetted in the centre foreground against a river or lake with boats and other figures. To the left a wooded landscape runs back towards a distant unidentified mansion and there are more buildings on the far bank.
Exhibited
London, Courtauld Institute Galleries, April - July 1968, The William Spooner Collection and Bequest (6); Harrogate, Corporation Art Gallery, 3-25 August 1968: English Watercolours: Memorial to William Wycliffe Spooner (1); Bath, Holburne of Menstrie Museum, 24 May - 20 July 1969, Masters of the Watercolour: Watercolours from the Spooner Collection (81); Rye Art Gallery, 17 October - 20 November 1971, Engllish Landscape Drawings; Bristol, City Art Gallery 11 May - 2 June 1973, English Watercolours: The Spooner Collection and Bequest (67); Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales and other locations in Australia; Wellington, National Art Gallery of New Zealand and other locations in New Zealand, 1976-78, Exhibition of Drawings nd Watercolours fom the Spooner and Witt Collections (4 repr. in New Zealand catalogue); London, Courtauld Institute Galleries, June - September 1979, English Landscape Drawings & Watercolours (8); London, British Museum, 24 February - 19 June 1983, Mantegna to Cézanne, Master Drawings from the Courtauld Institute (96 repr.); New York, The Drawing Center April - July 1986 and London, Courtauld Institute Galleries 3 September - 30 November 1986, The Northern Landscape; Flemish, Dutch and British Drawings from the Courtauld Collections (118)
Provenance
4th Earl of Warwick; sold Christie's 20 & 21 May 1896 or 7th Earl and Trustees of the 6th Earl of Warwick, Sotheby's 17 June 1936 (152 Classical Landscape and three others, bt Meatyard); Mr & Mrs W.W. Spooner, Ashbrook, Ilkley, Yorkshire; bequeathed to the Courtauld Institute by William Spooner, 1967
Signature/inscription
Unsigned; no inscription
Techniques and materials
There is some slight preliminary drawing in graphite, black chalk, with extensive use of stump and rubbing, as well as extensive drawing with the stump alone (restricted to the background and sky). Heightening with white chalk can be seen, with use of the stump and as bodycolour with brush. There are touches of red chalk in the heads of the three foreground figures and drawing with the stump in the cloud mass, upper centre.
Collectors' marks
[1] Recto lower right: 4th Earl of Warwick (Lugt 2600)
Critical commentary
On his return to England in 1757, Wilson painted a number of views of great country houses, including for example, Syon House. The present highly finished drawing has been identified with Syon but was unknown to Ford or Constable and despite compositional similarities does not seem directly related to the oil versions of Syon House from Richmond Gardens (P88, P88A, P88C, P88D). The identification now seems untenable and the drawing is either of another location entirely or an imaginary setting, synthesised from several actual views.
Condition/Conservation
Sheet unevenly trimmed at all sides, torn and repaired, lower right; torn and made up lower left corner; two small repaired damages upper centre.
Updated by Compiler
2016-11-22 00:00:00