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    Classical Landscape with Venus, Adonis and Cupids

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    Classical Landscape with Venus, Adonis and Cupids
    Classical Landscape with Venus, Adonis and Cupids
    Classical Landscape with Venus, Adonis and Cupids
    Victoria & Albert Museum, London
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Classical Landscape with Venus, Adonis and Cupids
    Date
    c.1754-55 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 62.9 x 74.9 cm
    Imperial: 24 3/4 x 29 1/2 in.
    Collection
    Victoria & Albert Museum, London. To license image, click here
    Accession Number
    105-1878
    Wilson Online Reference
    P68
    Exhibited
    Rome 1911 (11); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (70)
    Provenance
    Oldfield Bowles; by descent; bt mid 19th century by H.A.J. Munro of Novar; Christie's 6 April 1878 (61); bt Victoria & Albert Museum
    Signature/inscription
    Inscribed on plinth lower right: RW
    Techniques and materials
    David Solkin has commented that perhaps because Wilson did not wait long enough for each layer to dry, or through use of an unstable medium, the picture has undergone extensive cracking, a problem that recurs in several oils of the period.
    Subject
    The source is Ovid's Metamorphoses. The ancient ruin on the right is the Sedia di Diavolo, which stands near the Via Nomentana in the Roman Campagna and appears in several other Wilson landscapes including a drawing in the V&A sketchbook of 1752.
    Related Works by Other Artists
    Claude Lorrain, Flight into Egypt, 1639. Notre Dame University Gallery
    Francesco Zuccarelli Diana appearing to Endymion, The Royal Collection
    Critical commentary
    One of the earliest examples of Wilson's use of the Ovidian text that was to supply him with many later historical subjects, e.g. P90 The Destruction of Niobe's Children Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven and other versions. The influence of Claude is marked, especially the palette of the foliage and background of the landscape. Solkin has compared the design with Claude's Flight into Egypt, 1639, Notre Dame University Art Gallery, which was still in Rome in the 18th century. The figures were attributed to Cipriani by Christie's in the Munro of Novar sale catalogue, 6 April 1878.
    Bibliography
    WGC, pp.103, 118; Solkin 1982, pp. 186-187
    Condition/Conservation
    Kate Lowry has noted: Oil on plain weave canvas, medium weight. Glue relined. Stretcher size: 646 x 761 mm. Painting size 24 ½ x 29 ins. Top and bottom turnovers survive at face of stretcher, and these are unprimed. Ground is a pink/brown, even coating. Warm colour of ground gives a very red tone to the whole composition especially in figures and middle ground. Wide and extensive drying cracks present in foreground. In the trees against the sky there is no obvious reserve to the foliage, but there is a slight reserve visible around the lower branches. Foliage in middle ground quite sloppily painted. The work has a good provenance via Oldfield Bowles. Not signed or dated although the letters 'R' and 'M' are present lower right and have been construed as a monogram in the past.

    Work of Art

    Paintings

    • Strada Nomentana - I, Tate, London

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983
    • Rome, Italy, 1911

    Documents

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