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    300 years
    Return to "Booth, M." is linked to these Works 118 items
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    The Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome

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    The Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome
    The Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome
    The Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome
    Private Collection, England / Photograph by John Hammond
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    The Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome
    Date
    c.1753-54 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 48.3 x 62.2 cm
    Imperial: 19 x 24 1/2 in.
    Collection
    Private Collection, England
    Accession Number
    BB11
    Wilson Online Reference
    P60
    Description
    As proposed by Jonathan Yarker, the view was probably taken from a slight incline in the Orto Serena, identified by the antiquarian Ridolfo Venuta as a defensive mound associated with Tarquin, one of Rome's earliest kings. The façade and campanile of the church of Santa Bibiana are visible in a modified form beyond to the left.
    Exhibited
    Brighton 1920 (29 - Landscape); Exeter 1946 (66); Birmingham 1948-49 (21) London 1949 (20); Norwich 1958 (58); Rome 1959 (667); London 1968 (21); London Arts Council, The Age of Neo-Classicism, 1972 (280); Kenwood 1974 (148); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (69); Conwy 2009 (4); Weston 2011 (10); Gainsborough's House 2014 (unnumbered)
    Provenance
    Benjamin Booth; thence by descent
    Techniques and materials
    The foreground is extremely dark
    Subject
    The so-called temple of Minerva the Doctor was located next to the Porta Maggiore in Rome, on agricultural land within the ancient Aurelian walls. It was a popular subject for painters and had been featured by Andrea Palladio in I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, vol. 4 (1570) as Tempio vulgarmente detto le Galluce. One of the most famous and frequently reproduced monuments in eighteenth-century Rome, it had actually been a nymphaeum, or hall for ceremonial receptions, built for the Emperor P. Licinius Gallienus (235-268 AD). Today the building faces the Via Giolitti, between the Via Labicana and the Aurelian Walls. Its distinctive decagonal dome collapsed in 1828.
    Related Drawings
    D317 The Temple of Minerva Medica ,Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    D317A The Temple of Minerva Medica, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
    Related Prints
    E72/28 Hastings after Wilson, Temple of Minerva Medica, The British Museum (1854,0708.85)
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] Francis Towne (1739-1816): The Temple of Minerva at Sunset, watercolour, 1781, The British Museum (Nn,1.19)
    [2] J.-B.-C. Corot, Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome, 1826, Musées d'Angers
    Critical commentary
    The atmosphere of picturesque decay is accentuated by the gentle reverie of the classicising women in the foreground.
    Bibliography
    Booth Notes Doc. 8, p. 2; Booth Notes Doc. 9 (*34); Hastings 1825, p. 3 n.; Bury 1947, pl. 32; Ford 1951, p. 59; WGC, pp. 35, 82, 206, pl. 89; Solkin 1982, pp. 186-87; Walpole Society 1998-1, pp. 14-15, pl. 16; Lord 2009, p. 49, no. 4; Williams 2011, p. 21, repr.
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/98
    More Information
    Wilson included a drawing of the building among the series that he made in Italy for William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (D317 see 'Related Drawings'). The painting was probably also executed in Rome. Thomas Hastings commented that John Constable held this work in special regard, believing that it 'went far beyond anything he ever saw of Wilson's works and that, in his opinion, it possessed all the rigidity of the Italian School, with the great breadth so natural to the Master'.
    Updated by Compiler
    2020-05-25 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Temple of Minerva Medica, Rome, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), The Temple of Minerva Medica, Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Temple of Minerva Medica, The British Museum

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983
    • Brighton, Fine Art Galleries, 28 February - 2 May 1920
    • Conwy, Royal Cambrian Academy, 24 October - 23 December 2009
    • London, Kenwood House, Iveagh Bequest, 8 June - 27 August 1974
    • Weston Park, The Granary Art Gallery, 2 April - 3 July 2011
    • London, Simon C. Dickinson Ltd, 12 June - 13 July 2012
    • London, Royal Academy, 14 December 1968 - 2 March 1969
    • Exeter, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 7 March - 5 April 1946
    • Norwich, Castle Museum, 23 May - 20 July 1958
    • Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, 1959
    • Sudbury, Gainsborough's House, 11 January - 31 May 2014

    Biographies

    • Benjamin Booth (1732-1807)
    • Richard Ford (1796-1858)
    • Sir Brinsley Ford (1908-1999)
    • Elizabeth Booth (1763-1819)
    • Marianne Booth, Lady Ford (1767-1849)
    • Sir Richard Ford (1758-1806)
    • John Constable (1776-1837)
    • Sir Francis Clare Ford (1828-1899)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Peter Lord, Richard Wilson. Life & Legacy
    • Judy Egerton, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School
    • Brinsley Ford and other authors, The Ford Collection
    • Gareth Williams, Masterpieces from the Ford Collection
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 8: List of Wilson's Paintings and Works by Old Masters and other Artists in Booth's Collection
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 9: List of Wilson's Landscapes with Sizes and former Owners
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