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    The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianae (The Lake of Nemi with Diana and…

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    The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianae (The Lake of Nemi with Diana and…
    The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianae (The Lake of Nemi with Diana and…
    The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianae (The Lake of Nemi with Diana and…
    The Trustees of Jane, Lucy and Charles Hoare, Stourhead, Wiltshire, National Trust
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianae (The Lake of Nemi with Diana and Callisto)
    Date
    c.1758 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 75.6 x 97.2 cm
    Imperial: 29 3/4 x 38 1/4 in.
    Collection
    National Trust, Trustees of Jane, Lucy and Charles Hoare, Stourhead, Wiltshire. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    NT732391L/STO/P/997
    Wilson Online Reference
    P127A
    Description
    Wilson has restored the ruined Roman Temple of Diana, just below the town of Nemi itself, to its original shape. It is shown halfway up the opposite shore to the west, with the largely medieval town above and Monte Calvarone beyond. In the foreground, Diana with her hounds points accusingly at Callisto, who is accompanied by two other nymphs. A deer is drinking from the lake in the middle distance at the left. Behind, tiny white figures and animals are scattered across the landscape. There is a waterfall and its reflection can be seen to the right of the temple.
    Exhibited
    London 1870 (41); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (77); London, Paris and Madrid 2009-10 (12); Tercentenary 2014 (92)
    Provenance
    Seemingly sold by the artist for £30 to Henry Hoare II (1705-1785) of Stourhead, 1758; thence by descent; Christie's Stourhead Heirlooms Sale, 2 June 1883 (11), bt Grindley for another branch of the Hoare family; by descent to Jane, Lucy and Charles Hoare, from whose Trustees on loan to Stourhead since 1983
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    There is a pentiment in the foliage, upper right
    Subject
    Callisto was a nymph seduced by Jupiter when disguised as Diana. The scene comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses book 2, lines 401-530 and especially 441-465, where the virgin huntress has just discovered her handmaiden's pregnancy and is banishing her. Callisto's child will be the forefather of the Arcadian people. Since ancient times Lake Nemi had been associated with the cult of the goddess. Virgil and other classical writers had described the smooth, rounded lake as the Speculum Dianae or Mirror of Diana and as such, it was frequently mentioned in 18th century guide-books. Her famous sanctuary, the Grove of Diana, was on the northern shore of the lake, beneath the little town of Nemi (in Latin, Nemus Aricinum). The classical connotations of the lake are here strengthened by the introduction of Diana herself, chastising the errant nymph. The subject was particularly appropriate for Stourhead, where Henry Hoare 'the Magnificent', first owner of the present picture, had been trying to achieve a comparable blend of Italianate scenery, antique mythology and Grand Style landscape art since the early 1740s.
    Related Prints
    E13 Wood after Wilson, The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianæ, The British Museum
    E82 Marvy after Wilson, Lake Nemi or Speculum Dianæ, The British Museum
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Works by Other Artists
    Gaspard Dughet, Ideal Landscape, c.1658-1660, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (Accession no. 596)
    J.M.W Turner Lake Avernus, Aeneas and the Sibyl, c. 1798, Tate, London
    Critical commentary
    This is the only known composition by Wilson to depict mythological figures within a specific topographical setting. Callisto is clothed in diaphanous drapery (not naked). She is sitting on a hollow tree trunk, which may be symbolic of her destruction. Diana's hounds are shown as greyhounds. Compositionally Wilson has drawn as much on Poussin as on Dughet in this rigorously controlled work, yet there seems to be no relation between the shadow on the foreground rock, the nearby trees or the direction of the lighting.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    L/STO/P/997
    Bibliography
    Hazlitt 1843-44, vol. 1, p. li, no. 119; WGC, p. 165 (lost version of pl. 24a); K. Woodbridge, 'The Sacred Landscape: Painters and the Lake-garden at Stourhead', Apollo, vol. 88, September 1968, p. 212; Woodbridge 1970; Solkin 1981, pp. 410-11, pl. 25; Solkin 1982, pp. 192-93 (incorrectly illustrated); Solkin 2009, pp. 17, 21, 36, 100, 111-112); Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 277
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/106
    More Information
    The area round Lake Nemi enjoyed special respect among landscape painters and Wilson in particular because of its close associations with Gaspard Dughet. This painting is in fact an imitation of a well-known type of Gaspard design. In turn it inspired a drawing by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, The Lake of Avernus and Temple on its Banks (1790, Stourhead, the Hoare Collection), which influenced J.M.W. Turner's Aeneas and the Sibyl (c.1798, Tate London).
    Condition/Conservation
    Framed in a period rococo frame, 103.5 x 124.5 x 9 cm.
    Kate Lowry has noted: Glue-relined. Original turnovers missing. Original canvas had several tears before lining. These are visible in raking light: right angle tear in sky at upper right in orange leaved branch; vertical tear in foreground rock and horizontal damage in upper centre of sky. Possibly a grey oil ground. Paint applied in a quite liquid way; this is especially notable in the buildings in the background and in the grass and foliage in the foreground. Pentimenti visible in the silhouettes of the mountains and central tower. The shapes of the mountains have been slightly modified and the pointed roof of the tower has been flattened. Varnish quite thick and discoloured yellow. Under UV light there are a few small retouches visible overlying the varnish in the foreground and upper left where an area of drying cracking has been overpainted.

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • Joseph Wood after Wilson, The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianæ, The British Museum
    • Joseph Wood after Wilson, The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianæ, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    • Joseph Wood after Wilson, The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianæ, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • Louis Marvy after Wilson, Lake Nemi or Speculum Dianæ, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Diana and Callisto, Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Diana and Callisto, Private Collection
    • Richard Wilson and Studio The Lake of Nemi or Speculum Dianae with Dolbadarn Castle (Diana and Callisto), Bristol City Museum and Gallery

    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, Royal Academy, 2 January - 16 February 1870
    • London, Tate Britain; Paris, Grand Palais & Madrid, Prado, 23 September 2009 - 19 September 2010
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • Henry Hoare II, 'The Magnificent' (1705-1785)
    • 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
    • Kenneth Woodbridge, Landscape and Antiquity: Aspects of English Culture at Stourhead 1718 to 1838
    • David Solkin, 'Richard Wilson's Variations on a Theme by Gaspard Dughet'
    • David Solkin, Turner and the Masters
    • William Hazlitt, Criticisms on Art
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