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 "Hoare" is linked to these Works 2 items
    of 2

    River and Farmhouse -I (Italian River Scene with Figures)

    This item is active and ready to use
    River and Farmhouse -I (Italian River Scene with Figures)
    River and Farmhouse -I (Italian River Scene with Figures)
    River and Farmhouse -I (Italian River Scene with Figures)
    Victoria & Albert Museum, London
    title=Credit line
    Larger imageShareFeedback
    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    River and Farmhouse -I (Italian River Scene with Figures)
    Date
    1751
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 43 x 53 cm
    Imperial: 16 15/16 x 20 7/8 in.
    Collection
    Victoria & Albert Museum, London. To license image, click here
    Accession Number
    501-1883
    Wilson Online Reference
    P35
    Description
    Two trees stand in the left foreground with three figures under them. In the centre on the far bank is a low building with a tall chimney; there are two boats in the water to the right. High ground is in the left distance but to the right the terrain is flat, with distant hills.
    Exhibited
    BI 1814 (166/170 - Landscape), lent Sir Richard C. Hoare; London, Royal Acadermy 1880 Old Masters (22 - A Landscape, lent Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare); London, Royal Academy, 1960 Italian Art and Britain (159); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (60); Tercentenary 2014 (54)
    Provenance
    Painted in Italy and presented to the artist's friend, Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-88); bt by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart, in Venice in the late 1780s after Zuccarelli's death; thence by descent; Christie's Stourhead Heirlooms sale, 2 June 1883 (12), bt Agnews for the Victoria & Albert Museum, London
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Related Prints
    E72/18 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Italian Scenery, The British Museum (1854,0708.75) and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Paintings
    P37 Portrait of Francesco Zuccarelli, Tate, London
    Critical commentary
    Presumably painted in Venice before being given to his friend Zuccarelli, this is one of Wilson's first Italian landscapes. The style is an exercise in the Venetian Rococo, as practised by Zuccarelli and contemporary artists such as Giuseppe Zais (1709-1784). Wilson borrowed a number of stock motifs from their works, such as tattered peasants and the humble, sloping cottage - plus a loose method of composition which relies on a series of broadly looping curves. This style, however, did not long outlast his departure from Venice in late 1751 and compositional hints of a later, more characteristic approach are already present in the form of the fence and framing tree at the left and the prominent rock in the right foreground.
    Bibliography
    Edwards 1808, p. 78; Catalogue 1814, p. 20; Hazlitt 1843-44, vol. 1, p. 112 & p. li, no. 131; E.K. Waterhouse, 'A Richard Wilson Landscape painted in Italy', Burlington Magazine, vol. 91, Aug. 1949, pp. 230-31; WGC, pp. 24, 70, 78, 215-16, pl. 103a; Woodbridge 1970; Summary Catalogue of British Paintings, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1973, p. 151; Herrmann 1973, p. 52, pl. 44B; Solkin 1982, p. 178; Wilson and Europe 2014, pp. 244-45
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/118
    Condition/Conservation
    Glue relined; label on stretcher reverse records glue-lining in 1883 and surface sponging in 1894. Original canvas turnovers removed at time of relining. Stretcher probably not original as there are wider members than the stretcher. Bar cracks present on painting face at top and side margins. Grey ground or under painting visible between branches and around foliage. There is an unresolved, smudgy red object in the centre below the mill which might have been a figure in a boat. The reddish tree at far left may have been strengthened or introduced later. The paint in the sky is thick in places, perhaps indicating something else underneath. In raking light, there is severe wrinkling throughout the sky and flattening of impasto resulting from lining is visible. No further information revealed under UV apart from minor retouches to branches and along old cracks in paint.

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Italian Scenery, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) River and Farmhouse - I (River with Lime Kiln), Petworth House, National Trust
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) River and Farmhouse - I (River Scene with Lime Kiln), The Bowes Museum

    Paintings

    • Portrait of Francesco Zuccarelli, 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
    • London, British Institution, 1814
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788)
    • Sir Richard Colt Hoare 2nd Bart (1758-1838)

    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
    • Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painters who have resided or been born in England; with critical Remarks on their Productions
    • Michael Levey, 'Francesco Zuccarelli in England'
    • Kenneth Woodbridge, Landscape and Antiquity: Aspects of English Culture at Stourhead 1718 to 1838
    • Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the Eighteenth Century
    • 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
    • William Hazlitt, Criticisms on Art
    © Richard Wilson OnlineCreditsCopyright & DisclaimerPrivacy