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    Return to "Dartmouth" is linked to these Works 21 items
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    View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum

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    View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence 2014
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    View of St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum
    Date
    Dated 1754
    Medium
    Black chalk and stump, heightened with white on grey-green paper
    Dimensions
    Metric: 286 x 423 mm
    Imperial: 11 1/4 x 16 5/8 in.
    Collection
    Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    1972.118.294
    Wilson Online Reference
    D311
    Description
    This view from Monte Gianicolo extends north beyond the Vatican towards Monte Soratte on the horizon. In the foreground a woman and child walk downhill past a milestone towards the city and a pack horse and mounted figures also make their way towards it on the right.
    Exhibited
    Birmingham 1948-49 (82); London 1949 (81); Tercentenary 2014 (64)
    Provenance
    William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, who commissioned it in Rome in 1754; by descent until lost; rediscovered by Lady Dartmouth, Patshull House, Wolverhampton 1948; Christie's London 29 January 1954 (15), bt Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd, London; Walter C. Baker (1893-1971) New York; bequeathed to Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971
    Signature/inscription
    See 'Mount Inscriptions'
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Inscribed: 41
    Mount inscriptions
    [1] Signed on coloured border lower left: R Wilson f. Romae 1754
    [2] Inscribed in black ink on cartellino lower centre: Vatican.
    [3] Inscribed lower right: No. 13
    Subject
    The Janiculum Hill was a centre for the cult of the Roman god Janus. This view to the northwest is now largely obscured by buildings. In antiquity the Janiculum was known for noble villas, military triumphs, ancient burials and Christian martyrdoms. In the 17th and 18th centuries the area had associations with the Pamphilj family, one of whom, Cardinal Giovan Battista Pamphilj, reigned as Pope Innocent X from 1644 to 1655.
    Related Drawings
    D204 View of St Peter's from the Palace of the Caesars, with the Circus Maximus below, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Gurley Memorial Collection
    D298 The Vatican and Environs (Distant View of St Peter's Rome), location unknown
    Related Prints
    E59 Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    E59A Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    E59B Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    Related Paintings
    P57 Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum , Tate, London
    P57A St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Rome, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
    Critical commentary
    One of a major series of drawings commissioned by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801) in 1754, of which 25 are known to survive. The Dartmouth set is the most important group of the artist's finished compositions on paper. Originally numbering 68, the drawings were highly prized by the earl and much admired by connoisseurs of the day including William Lock of Norbury, as well as the artists John Hoppner and Joseph Farington. Hoppner said of them, 'they were such as the Greeks would have made & put all others at a distance' and Farington was almost certainly referring to them when he characterised Wilson's drawings as having 'all the qualities of his pictures except the colour.' Drawings from the set are distinguished by a white mount with lilac wash border, on which the artist attached a small white label, bearing the title of the work. Jonathan Yarker has suggested the grounds of the Villa Lante, which stands on the Janiculum Hill, as the site from which the view was taken, noting also that in the corresponding painting for Dartmouth, P57 Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Tate, London, Wilson introduced fragments of classical sculpture, which are not present in this more strictly topographical drawing.
    Bibliography
    Farington Diary, vol. 7, p. 2775 (1 June 1806); Farington Biographical Note p. 12; Ford 1948, fig. 7, no. 13; Ford 1951, pp. 60-61, no. 60; WGC, p. 220, pl. 110b; Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 267 under cat. 195; Wilson and Europe 2014, pp. 252-53
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/127
    More Information
    This is one of 20 views of the environs of Rome referred to by Thomas Jenkins in a letter dated 1 June 1754. Of these only no. 1 is missing from the serial numbers recorded in the lower right corner of each. All the Dartmouth drawings have numbers in graphite on the back, ranging (with gaps) from 23 to 61, thus supporting the total of 68 given by Farington. The mounts of the surviving drawings, with their lilac wash borders, were made by Wilson or under his direction, perhaps by Jenkins.

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • View of St Peter's from the Palace of the Caesars, with the Circus Maximus below, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Leonora Gurley Memorial Collection
    • The Vatican and Environs (Distant View of St Peter's Rome), location unknown

    Prints

    • Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    • Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum
    • Samuel Middiman after Wilson, View of Rome, The British Museum

    Paintings

    • Rome: St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Tate, London
    • St Peter's and the Vatican from the Janiculum, Rome, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

    Exhibitions

    • Birmingham City Art Gallery, 17 November 1948 - 9 January 1949
    • London, Tate Gallery, 22 January - 14 March 1949
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • Brinsley Ford, The Drawings of Richard Wilson
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Anthony M. Clark and Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text
    • Brinsley Ford, 'The Dartmouth Collection of Drawings by Richard Wilson'
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