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    Return to "Birmingham 1948-49" is linked to these Works 90 items
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    The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii

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    The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii
    The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii
    The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii
    Collection of the Earl of Pembroke, Wilton House, Wilts. / The Bridgeman Art Library
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii
    Date
    Undated
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 48.5 x 74.3 cm
    Imperial: 19 1/8 x 29 1/4 in.
    Collection
    Collection of the Earl of Pembroke, Wilton House, Wiltshire. To license image, click here.
    Wilson Online Reference
    P61
    Description
    The tomb is on the Via Appia Nuova, just beyond Albano on the way to Ariccia. Only two of its towers now survive. Here it is shown standing on sandy ground with the road running past to the left. A coach and horses are passing along it in a cloud of dust and in the distance figures disappear into the woodland. A goatherd with his dog, a flock of goats and a kid cross the foreground from the left and there are trees behind the tomb and in the background.
    Exhibited
    SA 1760 (73); Birmingham 1948-49 (53 - lent Earl of Pembroke); London 1949 (52 - lent Earl of Pembroke)
    Provenance
    Probably bt by Henry, 10th Earl of Pembroke (d. 1794) or his son, George (d. 1827)
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    The clouds are thinly painted and unsatisfactory, especially at the left. The figures are tiny and the colour concentrated within them. The trees are very misty and undifferentiated.
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] On the back of the canvas is painted in black letters in a late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century hand: 'Pembroke House. Wilson. Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii'
    Subject
    The tomb near Albano is in the Etruscan manner, a massive cube originally surmounted by five obtuse cones of which two are still standing.
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Paintings
    P67 Landscape Capriccio with the Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii and the Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] J.F. van Bloemen (L'Orrizonte), Paesaggio con Monumento degli Orazi e Curiazi, Pericoli Collection, Rome
    [2] Thomas Barker of Bath, The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, 1792, National Museum Wales, Cardiff (NMW A 454)
    Critical commentary
    Differences with P61A and P61B include the presence of only one figure by the tomb in the present picture. The flock and goatherd are similar to those depicted in P87 Ariccia - II in the same collection.
    Bibliography
    G. Richardson. Aedes Pembrochianae, 1774, p. 42 (A Landscape) [?]; WGC, pp. 203-4, pl. 82b; S. Pembroke, A Catalogue of the Paintings and Drawings in the Collection at Wilton House, Salisbury, Wiltshire, 1968, p. 36, cat. 89; F. Russell, A Catalogue of the Pictures and Drawings at Wilton House, 2021, p. 118, cat. 202
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/91
    More Information
    There is no record of when the painting came to Wilton and it is not mentioned by Sidney, Earl of Pembroke and Sir Neville Rodwell Wilkinson, in Wilton House Pictures, 1907. P61, P87 and P87A together with a pastoral by Francesco Zuccarelli form part of a set of four paintings at Wilton House in identical rococo-style carved and gilded wooden frames. George Richardson in his Aedes Pembrochianae (London 1774) mentions a 'Landscape by Wilson', which could be any of the first three. The tomb provided the model for at least two eighteenth-century garden structures in Britain.
    Condition/Conservation
    Unglazed. In a contemporary pierced Chippendale-style frame. Cleaned, blisters secured and repaired in 1936 and 1962. Relined 2006 by Richard Watkiss and restored by Simon Foulkes. Stretcher size recorded by him: 19 1/8 x 29 1/4 in.; 48.5 x 74.3 cm. Kate Lowry has noted: Not signed. White ground. Bright blue sky with wispy diagonal clouds upper left. Goatherd and goats in foreground rather too good for Wilson? Tree foliage upper right rendered in a dirty mid-green and rather smudgy brush strokes, unlike Wilson. Figure and tomb are more his style.
    Updated by Compiler
    2021-12-16 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, The Collection of Mr Darryl Saunders, New Orleans
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Tomb of the Horatii and the Curatii, near Albano, Italy, Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery

    Paintings

    • Landscape Capriccio with the Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii and the Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

    Exhibitions

    • Birmingham City Art Gallery, 17 November 1948 - 9 January 1949
    • London, Tate Gallery, 22 January - 14 March 1949

    Biographies

    • Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of Pembroke (1734-1794)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
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