Skip to Content
Log InRegister
    HomePaintingsDrawingsPrintsBrowse All WorksWilson CollectionsWilson Collections MapTercentenary ExhibitionOther ExhibitionsProject HighlightsThemes and MediaBiographiesBibliographical Resources
    Advanced Search
    Work of ArtBiographiesExhibitionsBibliographical Resources
    Settings
    Pages
    300 years
    Return to "Tercentenary 2014" is linked to these Works 95 items
    of 95

    Landscape with Banditti: The Murder (A Rocky Landscape)

    This item is active and ready to use
    Landscape with Banditti: The Murder (A Rocky Landscape)
    Landscape with Banditti: The Murder (A Rocky Landscape)
    Landscape with Banditti: The Murder (A Rocky Landscape)
    National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    title=Credit line
    Larger ImageShareFeedback
    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Landscape with Banditti: The Murder (A Rocky Landscape)
    Date
    c.1754 (undated)
    Medium
    Black chalk and stump with white highlights on grey paper laid down on cream paper with blue applied border
    Dimensions
    Metric: 283 x 404 mm
    Imperial: 11 1/8 x 15 7/8 in.
    Collection
    National Museum Wales, Cardiff. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    NMW A 1884
    Wilson Online Reference
    D323
    Exhibited
    Birmingham 1948-49 (95 - A Dramatic Composition); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (51); Tercentenary 2014 (53)
    Provenance
    Commissioned by Thomas Jenkins for William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth; by descent to the 8th Earl; Christie's 29 January 1954 (27); bt Colnaghi on behalf of the National Museum of Wales
    Collectors' marks
    [1] Possible undecipherable mark lower left
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Old pencil upper right: 59
    Related Paintings
    P50 Landscape with Banditti: The Murder, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    Critical commentary
    One of the 68 drawings commissioned by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, from Wilson in Rome in 1754. As a genre scene, however, the subject is unique among the surviving 25 drawings and is noticeably complex in design, recalling the Sublime works of Salvator Rosa and his followers. It is thus related to several of Wilson's contemporary paintings representing exotic violence, such as P50 Landscape with Banditti: The Murder. However, the drawing appears to be later than the painting in date and its high degree of finish makes it almost certainly a presentation piece rather than a compositional study. Solkin reasonably proposed that Dartmouth might have come across a related oil in Wilson's studio and commissioned this drawing as a result.
    Bibliography
    Farington Diary, vol. 7, p. 2775 (1 June 1806); Farington Biographical Note p. 12; Ford 1948, fig. 9, p. 345, A Dramatic Composition; WGC, pp. 91, 157-58, pl. 13b; Solkin 1982, p. 172; Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 267 under cat. 195; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 244
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/17
    More Information
    All the 25 surviving Dartmouth drawings have numbers in graphite on the back, ranging (with gaps) from 23 to 61, thus supporting the original total of 68 given by Farington.
    Condition/Conservation
    Flattened horizontal fold visible about halfway up image

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Study for the Murder, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

    Paintings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Landscape with Banditti: The Murder, National Museum Wales, Cardiff

    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
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801)
    • Thomas Jenkins (1722-1798)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • 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, 'The Dartmouth Collection of Drawings by Richard Wilson'
    © Richard Wilson OnlineCreditsCopyright & DisclaimerPrivacy