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    Return to "Coventry" is linked to these Works 2 items
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    Study for Croome Court, Worcestershire

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    Study for Croome Court, Worcestershire
    Study for Croome Court, Worcestershire
    Study for Croome Court, Worcestershire
    Private Collection, England
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Study for Croome Court, Worcestershire
    Date
    1758 (undated)
    Medium
    Black chalk and stump over graphite, heightened with white on white laid paper.
    Dimensions
    Metric: 331 x 239 mm
    Imperial: 13 x 9 3/8 in.
    Collection
    Private Collection
    Wilson Online Reference
    D348
    Exhibited
    London 1925 (84); Manchester 1925 (6); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (82)
    Provenance
    Commissioned by the 6th Earl of Coventry; [...] Captain Richard Ford; Mrs Richard Ford
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Ink in a later hand: Croome Lord Coventry's.
    Subject
    Croome Court was the first independent landscaping project carried out by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown (1716-1783). The house itself, the church, the wooden bridge and the ice-house in the park were also built to his designs.
    Related Paintings
    P83 Croome Court, Worcestershire, Private Collection, England
    Critical commentary
    A study for P83 Croome Court, Worcestershire, the sheet seems to have been cut down at some point - the far right of the final scene is missing and the drawing seems to have been cropped right along the edge of Croome Court. On the ridge to the left of the house is the proposed classical church, which is very different from the Gothic building eventually constructed and visible in P83. When Wilson executed this study, the church was not built and the design had not been finalised between Brown and Lord Coventry. They had planned a classical church with a portico and columns but this was eventually scrapped. It would have been similar to the chapel at Compton Verney, which Brown designed in the late 1770s. At some point Wilson must have seen designs for or a description of the final church as shown in P83. It was not built until the early 1760s and not consecrated until 1763.
    Solkin has remarked how the study clearly distinguishes between its two sources of visual inspiration - the Netherlandish and Roman traditions of landscape composition. Thus while the pencil lines, drawn on the spot, describe a Dutch type of river scene, this has then been worked up in the studio through the addition of a Claudean framing tree and extensive modelling in black chalk, stump and white highlights.
    Bibliography
    Ford 1951 p.62, no. 72; WGC pp. 43. 71, 87, 88, 111, 149, 173, pl. 33b; Solkin 1982, pp. 196-97
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/39

    Work of Art

    Paintings

    • Croome Court, Worcestershire, Private Collection, England

    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, National Gallery, Millbank (Tate Gallery), 26 June - 30 September 1925
    • Manchester City Art Gallery, 22 October - 5 December 1925

    Biographies

    • George William, 6th Earl of Coventry (1722-1809)

    Documents

    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
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