The Destruction of the Children of Niobe

The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
Private Collection at Ashridge, England
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
Date
c.1754-55 (undated)
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Metric: 125.2 x 174.2 cm
Imperial: 49 5/16 x 68 9/16 in.
Collection
Private Collection at Ashridge, England
Accession Number
117
Wilson Online Reference
P90A
Description
Eleven of Niobe's children are killed by the gods Apollo and Artemis in a dramatic, sublime landscape. Wilson's stormy setting emphasises the horror of the narrative by the broken trees, reeds bent with the wind, tumultuous seas, the fire in the distant town, the agitated skies, with lightning striking the mountain, and the lurid light on the distant horizon. The tree-trunk at the left has been struck by the force of the gods' appearance and has broken in two, while the brilliance of their aura highlights the neighbouring trunk.
Exhibited
Tercentenary 2014 (88)
Provenance
Commissioned in Rome by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, c.1754-55; 1st Duke of Sutherland, Stafford House, London; 1st Earl of Ellesmere, Bridgewater House, London; thence by descent
Signature/inscription
Signed on tree trunk, lower left: RW
Subject
This painting is inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 6, lines 144-312. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and Queen of Thebes, is punished for having dared to suggest, because she had seven sons and seven daughters, that she was superior to the goddess Leto (or Latona). Apollo and Artemis, children of Leto, killed all of Niobe's offspring in revenge and she herself wept until she was turned into stone.
Related Drawings
D53/35 Niobe from An Italian Sketchbook Victoria & Albert Museum Sketchbook p. 35
D325 The Children of Niobe, The British Museum (1847,0723.107)
D355 Recumbent Male Nude, National Museum Wales, Cardiff (NMW A 1885)
D369 Ascribed to Wilson, Landscape Study, Victoria & Albert Museum
Related Prints
E69 John Henry Wright after Wilson, Niobe, The British Museum (1860,0211.610) and other impressions
Versions
See 'Links' tab
Related Paintings
Pendant: P119A Phaeton's Petition to Apollo, Private Collection
Related Works by Other Artists
[1] Gaspard Dughet, The Cascade, late 1660s, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
[2] William Hodges (1744-1797) after Wilson, Niobe, graphite, brown and white chalk, 370 x 425 mm, ex-Paul Sandby collection, Christie's 12 December 1981 (40i). Location unknown.
[3] Jacques-Louis David, Apollo and Diana attacking the Children of Niobe, 1772, Dallas Museum of Art, USA
Critical commentary
W.G. Constable believed that this was a later elaboration of the design of P90 (Yale Center for British Art), in which coherence has to some extent been lost. But it is more likely to be the first version of the subject, painted for Bridgewater while Wilson was still in Italy, with his original figures replaced by Placido Constanzi (1702-1759). The substitution certainly applies to the two figures of the gods as a pentiment is visible below Apollo and to his left, which echoes his upraised right arm. The trajectory of the arrow in the back of the foreground figure at the right also suggests that it was fired from a lower angle. There seems to be a pentiment next to the central female figure. Much of the background is close in style to Wilson's supporter, Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), from whom Bridgewater also commissioned four paintings in 1756, (even though Vernet had returned to France in 1753). Wilson's stylistic debts to Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) and Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675) are also evident.
Previous Cat/Ref Nos
BH 271
Bibliography
Booth Notes Doc. 4; Booth Notes Doc. 5, p. 1; W.Y. Ottley, The Marquis of Stafford's Collection of Pictures, 1818, vol. 4, p. 141; J. Young, A Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures, of the most noble the Marquis of Stafford ..., 1825, vol. 2, no. 242; Hazlitt 1843-44, vol. 2, p. xlv, no. 289 - Landscape; with the Story of Niobe [Repetition of the picture in the National Gallery]; Borenius 1944, p. 211; Grant 1945, p. 44; WGC, pp. 160-63, pl. 20b; Solkin 1982, pp. 201-2, n. 3; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 274; P. Humfrey, 'The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater as a Collector of Old Master Paintings', Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 27, no. 2, 2015, pp. 214, 224, n. 28; P. Humfrey, 'The 2nd Marquess of Stafford and the Stafford Gallery', Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, p. 48
Link to WG Constable Archive Record
More Information
In 1808 the painting hung in the ante-room at the newly extended Cleveland House, St James's, along with Turner's Bridgewater Seapiece, as one of the Marquess of Stafford' s relatively few British paintings
Condition/Conservation
Kate Lowry has noted: In a contemporary Maratta frame. Canvas size: 123 x 171.8 cm (48 7/16 x 67 5/8 in.) Painted on a coarse, simple weave linen about 8-10 threads per square cm. Stretcher is modern and possibly dates from the relining. Seven members with square mortice joints and provision for keying out. Original bars were approximately 55 mm wide judging by vection cracks at upper edge. The original canvas has been glue relined with original turnovers incorporated on the face of the stretcher. These turnovers are unprimed but edges of original ground are present and its colour is a pale pink/brown, similar to that found in other Roman Wilsons such as P56 Rome from the Villa Madama, Yale Center for British Art, and P64 Rome from the Ponte Molle, National Museum Wales, Cardiff. Pentimenti around left and central figure groups suggest the figures have been altered, and give some substance to the anecdote that Bridgewater had another artist repaint Wilson's figures. Apollo was originally painted considerably lower, which would make more sense of the position of the arrow in the back of the woman at right of foreground. Most of the figures appear to be painted with greater attention to detail than is normal for Wilson.
Updated by Compiler
2021-06-03 00:00:00