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    Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum

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    Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    Tate, London 2014
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    Date
    c.1753-54 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 100.3 x 139.1 cm
    Imperial: 39 1/2 x 54 3/4 in.
    Collection
    Tate, London. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    T01873
    Wilson Online Reference
    P57
    Description
    The view extends over Rome to the north-west from the Janiculum Hill in Trastevere. The landscape to the north of the city, on the left, is dominated by the Vatican, with the dome of St Peter's and the Roman Campagna beyond. In front of the Vatican is the shaded façade of the Quartiere di Cavalleggieri (Quarters of the Light Horse Guard). The colonnade and obelisk of the Piazza San Pietro are also visible. On the horizon, to the right, is Mount Soratte (Soracte to the ancient Romans), about 28 miles from Rome. In the right foreground is a famous antique relief showing Maenads leading a bull to sacrifice. A similar relief was once in the Medici collection and is now in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, with a copy in the Vatican Museum.
    Exhibited
    BI 1814 (197 or 201 - A View of Rome); BI 1844 (141 or 147); Manchester 1857 (Modern Masters, 34 - Rome, with St Peter's); Royal Academy, Old Master Exhibition, 1879 (234 - View of St Peter's Rome); Birmingham 1948-49 (18); London 1949 (17); Manchester 1957 (190); Norwich 1958 (60); Munich 1979-80 (92); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (68); London 1996-97 (92); Tercentenary 2014 (61)
    Provenance
    Commissioned or purchased in Rome by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth; by descent to Lady Templemore; sold May 1974 to the Tate Gallery, London with assistance from the National Art Collections Fund and an anonymous donor through John Baskett Ltd, 173 New Bond Street, London W.1.
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Subject
    In antiquity the Janiculum Hill was known for noble villas, military triumphs, ancient burials and Christian martyrdoms. In the 17th and 18th centuries the area had associations with the Pamphilj family, one of whom, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, reigned as Pope Innocent X from 1644 to 1655. The prospect was equally famous with that of its pendant, P56 Rome from the Villa Madama, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. However, it is now largely obscured by buildings.
    Related Drawings
    D204 View of St Peter's from the Palace of the Caesars, with the Circus Maximus below, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Gurley Memorial Collection
    D311 View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
    Related Prints
    E59 Samuel Middiman, View of Rome, for Forster's British Gallery of Engravings, 1807, and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Paintings
    Pendant: P56 Rome from the Villa Madama, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
    Critical commentary
    The second of two views of Rome commissioned by Lord Dartmouth, one of Wilson's key patrons in Italy, this is among Wilson's most ambitious early Italian landscapes. The design seems to have been in emulation of Jan Frans van Bloemen (l'Orizzonte) and Claude. This is the earliest version of the subject and was painted as a pair to P56, which is dated 1753. The city of Rome is seen from a greater distance than in the related drawing D311.
    Bibliography
    Catalogue 1814, p. 21; Ford 1951, p. 21; Ford 1952, pp. 311-12, fig.3; Waterhouse 1953, p. 175; WGC, pp. 33, 71, 220, pl. 110a; Sutton & Clements 1968, vol. 2, p. 10, fig. 11; Howard 1969, p. 732, fig. 21; Tate Gallery Report, 1974-6, March 1976; Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions, London, Tate Gallery, 1978, pp. 42-43; Solkin, 1982, p. 186; Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 267 under cat. 195; Galassi 1991, pp. 89-90, pl. 102; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 249
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/127
    Condition/Conservation
    Framed in a period rococo frame identical in design to that of its pendant, P56. Dimensions with frame: 101 x 157.5 x 90 cm. Cleaned at the Tate Gallery in 1974. Visual examination and sampling by Ann Baxter. Kate Lowry has noted: White priming; unusually thick paint in foreground darks, which suffer from drying crackle; sky consists of several layers of Prussian blue mixed with lead white; the upper layer of sky paint contains ultramarine.
    Updated by Compiler
    2018-08-28 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • View of St Peter's from the Palace of the Caesars, with the Circus Maximus below, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Gurley Memorial Collection
    • View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

    Prints

    • Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    • Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    • Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Rome, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

    Paintings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Rome from the Villa Madama, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (pendant)

    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
    • London, British Institution, 1814
    • Munich, Haus der Kunst, 21 November 1979 - 27 January 1980
    • Tate Gallery, London and Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 10 October 1996 - 5 January 1997 and 5 February - 7 April 1997
    • Manchester, Exhibition Hall, 5 May - 17 October 1857
    • Norwich, Castle Museum, 23 May - 20 July 1958
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014
    • Manchester City Art Gallery, 30 October - 31 December 1957

    Biographies

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

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Deborah Howard, 'Some Eighteenth-Century English Followers of Claude'
    • Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530-1790
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Anthony M. Clark and Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text
    • Brinsley Ford, 'Richard Wilson in Rome: II - The Claudean Landscapes'
    • Denys Sutton & Ann Clements, An Italian Sketchbook by Richard Wilson, RA: Drawings made by the Artist in Rome and its Environs in the Year 1754
    • Anonymous, Catalogue of Pictures by the late William Hogarth, Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, and J. Zoffani. Exhibited by permission of the proprietors in honour of the memory of those distinguished artists, and for the improvement of British art
    • Peter Galassi, Corot in Italy. Open-Air Painting and the Classical-Landscape Tradition
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