Study for Landscape, Destruction of Niobe's Children

This item is active and ready to use

Victoria & Albert Museum, London

title=Credit line

Larger imageShareFeedback

Artist

Ascribed to Wilson

Title

Study for Landscape, Destruction of Niobe's Children

Date

c.1760-65 (undated)

Medium

Oil and bodycolour on paper

Dimensions

Metric: 413 x 515 mm
Imperial: 16 1/4 x 20 1/4 in.

Collection

Victoria & Albert Museum, London. To license image, click here

Accession Number

P.15-1915

Wilson Online Reference

D369

Exhibited

London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (86)

Provenance

Perhaps Paul Sandby sale, Christie's 4 May 1811 (80 - A drawing, the effect of a storm: it was from this sketch Mr. Wilson took the idea of painting his celebrated picture of the Niobe); bt 'C' 13 guineas; [...] given to the Museum by Henry J. Pfungst, FSA., 1915

Signature/inscription

Unsigned; no inscription

Related Paintings

P90B The Destruction of Niobe's Children, ex-National Gallery; destroyed 1944

Critical commentary

Perhaps a preliminary study for P90B The Destruction of Niobe's Children, ex-National Gallery; destroyed 1944. Solkin notes, however, that Wilson is not known to have produced any comparable large sketches in colour for the landscape backgrounds of his subject-pictures, or any works in this medium. There are thus considerable grounds for doubt as to the authorship of the present work, whose freedom of handling might support the function of a preliminary study and whose differences of detail from P90B argue against its being a copy.

Bibliography

Booth Notes Doc. 5, p. 3 [?]; Whitley 1800-1820, p. 152; Borenius 1944, p. 212; WGC, p. 163; M. Hardie, Watercolour Paintings in Britain, 1966, vol. 1, p. 74 & pl. 45; Solkin 1982, p. 200

Updated by Compiler

2016-12-22 00:00:00

Study for Landscape, Destruction of Niobe's Children

Work of Art

Paintings

Exhibitions

Documents