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    300 years
    Return to "Booth" is linked to these Works 52 items
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    On Hounslow Heath

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    On Hounslow Heath
    On Hounslow Heath
    On Hounslow Heath
    Tate, London 2014
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    On Hounslow Heath
    Date
    c.1765 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 42.5 x 52.7 cm
    Imperial: 16 3/4 x 20 3/4 in.
    Collection
    Tate, London. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    N04458
    Wilson Online Reference
    P131
    Description
    An extensive landscape with a market woman in a red dress seated on a bank in the left foreground, her back to the viewer and a basket by her side. Beyond is a river, on the near bank of which two donkeys are grazing. Upstream are a weir and a thickly-wooded island.
    Exhibited
    RA 1770 (203 - a version); Brighton 1920 (11); London 1925 (11); Manchester 1925 (40); Birmingham 1948 (36); London 1949 (35); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (111); Tercentenary 2014 (140)
    Provenance
    Commissioned by Thomas Davies (1712-85); Benjamin Booth; Revd R.S.Booth; Lady Ford; Richard Ford; Sir F. Clare Ford; Captain Richard Ford, sold 14 June 1929 (20), bt R.E.A. Wilson and M. Liver (Savile Gallery, 900 guineas); presented through the National Art Collections Fund to the National Gallery by R.E.A. Wilson and M. Oliver, 1929; transferred to Tate Gallery
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Subject
    The view, looking east, shows part of the watermeadows beside the River Crane near Whitton Place, an estate on Hounslow Heath acquired in 1765 by Wilson's friend, the architect Sir William Chambers from John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll.
    Related Drawings
    D360 A View of On Hounslow Heath, Private Collection, UK, c/o Lowell Libson Ltd
    Related Prints
    Thomas Hastings after Richard Wilson:
    E72/1 The British Museum
    E72/1A The British Museum
    E72/1B Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    Hounslow Heath was not known for its beauty or cultural significance, the attraction lies in the beauty of the sky and the reflections in the water. The patron, Thomas Davies, was a Bloomsbury bookseller, one of a new breed of middle class buyers whom Wilson had not previously approached. In Booth's unpublished list the work is given as '17 Hounslow Heath sd to be taken near Wootton late D. Argyle's (?) for Tom Davies 20 3/4 - 15 1/4'. In his introduction to Etchings from the Works of Ric. Wilson, with some Memoirs of his Life &c., Thomas Hastings states that 'Paul Sandby was with Wilson at the time the Sketch was made for the subject of Hounslow Heath'.
    Bibliography
    Booth Notes Doc. 8; Booth Notes Doc. 9 (17 - Hounslow Heath sd to be taken near Wootton late D. Argyle's (?) for Tom Davies 20 3/4 - 17); Hastings 1825, p. 9; The Burlington Magazine, vol. 36, April 1920, pp. 193-95, pl. IA; Rutter 1923, p. 92; WGC, pp. 93, 177-78, pl. 39b; Davies 1946, pp. 178-79, cat. 4458; Davies 1959, pp. 105-6; Hayes 1964, pp. 338-39, fig. 38; Herrmann 1973, p. 58, pl. 51, detail, col. pl. VII; Solkin 1982, p. 220, no. 111; Waites 2012, pp. 56-57, pl. 7; Wilson and Europe 2014 (140)
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/47
    More Information
    The patron, Thomas Davies, was a Bloomsbury bookseller, one of a new breed of middle class buyers whom Wilson had not previously approached. In Booth's unpublished list the work is given as '17 Hounslow Heath sd to be taken near Wootton late D. Argyle's (?) for Tom Davies 20 3/4 - 15 1/4'. In his introduction to Etchings from the Works of Ric. Wilson, with some Memoirs of his Life &c., Hastings says that 'Paul Sandby was with Wilson at the time the Sketch was made for the subject of Hounslow Heath' (p.9)
    Condition/Conservation
    Dimensions framed: 60.8 x 72.5 cm (23 15/16 x 28 1/2 in.)
    Visual examination and sampling by Ann Baxter 1982.
    Kate Lowry has noted: Relined. Original tacking margins missing. Warm cream coloured ground applied in two layers with intervening size layer. Ultramarine found in the sky. Pentiment in central trees where Wilson has painted out one of the right hand branches and repainted it in a different position. Foreground impasto somewhat flattened by lining treatment.
    Illustrations of the Work
    Burlington Magazine, April 1920, p. 193
    Updated by Compiler
    2017-11-08 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), A View of On Hounslow Heath, Private Collection, UK, c/o Lowell Libson Ltd

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Richard Wilson, On Hounslow Heath, The British Museum
    • Thomas Hastings after Richard Wilson, On Hounslow Heath, Outer Suburb, West, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
    • Thomas Hastings after Richard Wilson, On Hounslow Heath, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) On Hounslow Heath, 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, Tate Gallery, 22 January - 14 March 1949
    • Brighton, Fine Art Galleries, 28 February - 2 May 1920
    • London, National Gallery, Millbank (Tate Gallery), 26 June - 30 September 1925
    • Manchester City Art Gallery, 22 October - 5 December 1925
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • Benjamin Booth (1732-1807)
    • Sir William Chambers (1722-1796)
    • Thomas Davies (1712-1785)
    • Richard Ford (1796-1858)
    • The Revd Richard Salwey Booth (1762-1807)
    • Marianne Booth, Lady Ford (1767-1849)
    • Captain Richard Ford (1860-1940)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • John Hayes, 'An unknown Wilson Drawing of Hounslow Heath'
    • Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the Eighteenth Century
    • Martin Davies, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School
    • Ian Waites, Common Land in English Painting
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 8: List of Wilson's Paintings and Works by Old Masters and other Artists in Booth's Collection
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