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    Return to "Kenwood 1974" is linked to these Works 12 items
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    The Circus of Flora, Rome, with an Artist sketching in the Foreground

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    The Circus of Flora, Rome, with an Artist sketching in the Foreground
    The Circus of Flora, Rome, with an Artist sketching in the Foreground
    The Circus of Flora, Rome, with an Artist sketching in the Foreground
    Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery / Norfolk Museums Service
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    The Circus of Flora, Rome, with an Artist sketching in the Foreground
    Date
    Dated 1754
    Medium
    Graphite, black chalk with stump, heightened with white chalk on grey laid paper
    Dimensions
    Metric: 278 x 421 mm
    Imperial: 10 15/16 x 16 9/16 in.
    Collection
    Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    NWHCM 1974.390:F
    Wilson Online Reference
    D306
    Description
    The view is from the eastern end of the former Circus of Flora, looking beyond the Villa Cesi (now destroyed) on the left towards the distant dome of St Peter's, with a seated artist drawing in the foreground
    Exhibited
    Birmingham 1948-49 (77); London 1949 (76); P.& D. Colnaghi & Co. Ltd, London 1973, Exhibition of English Drawings, Watercolours and Paintings (84, pl. XXXIIb); Kenwood 1974 (23); J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky 1977, British Watercolours: A Golden Age 1750-1850 (4); Munich 1979-80 (93 - Der Zirkus des Maximus, Rom); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (45); Philadelphia and Houston 2000 (405)
    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 (10), bt The Mount Trust Collection; Christie's 5 June 1973 (38); P.& D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd, London; bt by Norwich Castle Museum 1974 with financial assistance from the Victoria & Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund
    Signature/inscription
    See 'Mount inscriptions'
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Original mount, black lead: 51
    Mount inscriptions
    [1] Black chalk lower left on coloured border of original mount: R.W.f. Roma 1754.
    [2] Black chalk lower right on coloured border of original mount: No. 8
    [3] Ink superimposed on coloured border of original mount label: Circus | of | Flora.
    Subject
    David Solkin has noted that the Circus of Flora, no longer in existence, once lay south west of the Porta Salaria in the northeast corner of the walled city of Rome
    Critical commentary
    One of a major series of drawings commissioned by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801) iin 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 and artists of the day including William Lock of Norbury, 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.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    390.974
    Bibliography
    Farington Diary, vol. 7, p. 2775 (1 June 1806); Farington Biographical Note p. 12; Ford 1948, p. 345, no. 8; Ford 1951, pp. 23, 59, no. 54; WGC, pp. 33, 108; Burlington Magazine, December 1973; Solkin 1982, pp. 168-169; Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 267 under cat. 195; E.P Bowron & J.J. Rishel eds., Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, 2000, pp. 557-58 (entry by A. Percy).
    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.
    Condition/Conservation
    Dimensions including coloured border: 353 x 495 mm 13 7/8 x 19 1/2 in.) Conserved at P.& D. Colnaghi & Co Ltd 1973
    Updated by Compiler
    2018-11-26 00:00:00

    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
    • Munich, Haus der Kunst, 21 November 1979 - 27 January 1980
    • London, Kenwood House, Iveagh Bequest, 8 June - 27 August 1974
    • Philadelphia Museum of Art & Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 16 March - 28 May & 25 June - 17 September 2000

    Biographies

    • William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • 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'
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