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    300 years
    Return to "London, Cardiff and New Haven 1982-83" is linked to these Works 146 items
    of 146

    Ruined Tower with Figures

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    Ruined Tower with Figures
    Ruined Tower with Figures
    Ruined Tower with Figures
    Bristol City Museum and Gallery, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Ruined Tower with Figures
    Date
    c.1770-79 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on oak panel
    Dimensions
    Metric: 15.7 x 17.1 cm [sight size in frame]
    Imperial: 6 3/16 x 6 3/4 in. [sight size in frame]
    Collection
    Bristol City Museum and Gallery. To license images click here.
    Accession Number
    BAG 714722
    Wilson Online Reference
    P168
    Description
    On the right is a tower, with figures standing a little to the left of a broken arch abutting the tower and overgrown with foliage. Another ruin stands further back to the left, with sea visible beyond. A shaft of light slants downwards towards the right from a large opening in the clouds of a stormy sky, the whole surmounted by three birds in flight.
    Exhibited
    London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (143)
    Provenance
    John Watkins Brett, Hanover Square, London; his sale, fifth day, Christie's, 9 April 1864 (697 - R. Wilson, A small landscape, with a ruin); Col. M.H. Grant, 1904; with W. Katz, Bruton Place and 11 Old Bond Sreet, London W.1; purchased by Bristol City Art Gallery, 1946
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    Solkin noted that the oak support had not been properly squared, nor were its edges bevelled as one would expect from a prepared panel, suggesting the use of a scrap of wood when the artist's extreme poverty left him unable to afford canvas during his last years. In places the wood shows through the paint, possibly with no ground layer.
    Collectors' marks
    Verso: Said to be a seal of an oval containing a lion rampant (inaccessible when viewed)
    Related Drawings
    D361 Ruins and Figures, The British Museum (1881,0212.26)
    D361A Landscape: Road winding past Ruins of a Castle, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (Dyce.645)
    Related Prints
    E60/16 John Whessell after Wilson, Studies & Designs: View of a ruined Tower with three Figures gathered in front, The British Museum and other impressions
    E72/16 Thomas Hastings, Untitled, The British Museum (1854,0708.73) and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    Very competently painted despite the small scale, unusual support and relatively late date. An upright variant of this composition was etched by Hastings in 1821, when it was in the Ford collection. The etching is inscribed 'Painted by R. Wilson 1771'. As noted by Ford, Farington's copy of a similar composition in his 1765 Victoria & Albert Museum sketchbook differs from both the present painting and known drawings (D361 Ruin and Figures, The British Museum and D361A Landscape; Road winding past Ruins of a Castle, Victoria & Albert Museum) and may thus have been copied from an earlier painting of the subject.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    Object No.: K1626
    Bibliography
    Ford 1951, p. 57 under no. 41; WGC, p. 221, pl. 112b; Constable 1962, p. 141, under no. 3; Solkin 1982, pp. 247-48
    Condition/Conservation
    The stretcher size is recorded in the curatorial records as 17.8 x 16.2 cm (7 x 6 3/8 in.) Very good condition. Kate Lowry has commented: Panel is prepared with a red ground which is visible in the darks of the sea and clouds. Also at lower left and in the building at the right. There is a minor vertical crack in panel. Strong diagonal mature cracks in paint film. Paint applied loosely with impasto. Varnish film quite thick and slightly discoloured.

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Ruins and Figures, The British Museum
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Landscape: Road winding past Ruins of a Castle, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

    Prints

    • John Whessell (c.1760-1806) after Wilson, Studies & Designs: View of a ruined Tower with three Figures gathered in front, The British Museum
    • John Whessell (c.1760-1806) after Wilson, Architectural Ruins, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Untitled, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Two Figures by a Ruin (Ruined Tower with Figures) , Felbrigg Hall, National Trust

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Brinsley Ford, The Drawings of Richard Wilson
    • William George Constable, 'Richard Wilson: A Second Addendum'
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