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    Return to "Grant" is linked to these Works 8 items
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    Lake Avernus - I (View in Italy, Lake Avernus)

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    Lake Avernus - I (View in Italy, Lake Avernus)
    Lake Avernus - I (View in Italy, Lake Avernus)
    Lake Avernus - I (View in Italy, Lake Avernus)
    Courtesy of the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Lake Avernus - I (View in Italy, Lake Avernus)
    Date
    Undated
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 39.4 x 52.7 cm
    Imperial: 15 1/2 x 20 3/4 in.
    Collection
    Magdalen College, Oxford. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    P0804
    Wilson Online Reference
    P122E
    Description
    A view across the lake towards a large ruined building with hills and mountains beyond. In the foreground, on the left, stand some trees. In the centre, there are three figures, two men, one seated on a log and one woman, or perhaps a monk, gesticulating. To the right are an open ancient sarcophagus, woodland and a hill topped by ancient buildings. Behind the group of figures a man bends down to his boat on the lake and further out another boat is visible.
    Provenance
    Col. M.H. Grant; bt by Lt Col. R.H.R. Brocklebank, Stratford-upon-Avon, May 1935; bequeathed to Magdalen College 1965
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    Tree painted over a reserve; horizon line drawn down as normal. The drawing of the building on top of the cliff is visible and not exactly filled in. The skyline/tree junction to the right is normal, as are the clouds and figures.
    Subject
    Lake Avernus lies on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, about a mile from Cumae. Filling the crater of an extinct volcano, mephitic vapours rise from its waters, precluding life on its banks, because of which it was believed to be the entrance to the Underworld by the Ancients. Thus in Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas sacrifices to the gods in the shadow of the forest surrounding Lake Avernus and then follows the Cumaean Sibyl into her cave and down into the Underworld.
    Related Prints
    E16 James Roberts after Wilson, A View in Italy, The British Museum
    E16A James Roberts after Wilson, Lake Avernus (A View in Italy), National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    The exact location is not certain but has been identified as including the 'Temple of Apollo' and the scene is based on views in the Phlegraean Fields, rearranged with Wilsonian licence. The elements are Lake Avernus, Lake Lucrino (middle distance), the Bay of Baia (distance). The mountain is Monte Gauro.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    Sotheby's Reference No.: 791
    Bibliography
    WGC, p. 195, pl. 69a (version 5); Lt Col. H. Brocklebank, A Turn or Two I'll Walk to Still my beating Mind: Commentary on a Private Collection, London 1955, pp. 39-44
    Condition/Conservation
    Discoloured varnish; normal craquelure. Framed in an eighteenth-century rococo Chippendale carved wood gilt frame
    Updated by Compiler
    2021-11-30 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • James Roberts after Wilson, A View in Italy, The British Museum
    • James Roberts after Wilson, Lake Avernus (A View in Italy), National Museum Wales, Cardiff

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Lake Avernus - I (Lake Avernus with the Temple of Apollo in the Distance) , Private Collection, Wales
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)and later intervention, Lake Avernus - I, York Art Gallery, York
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Lake Avernus - I, Galerie Hans, Hamburg
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Lake Avernus - I (Lake Avernus with Figures in the Foreground and the Temple of Apollo beyond), Private Collection
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Lake Avernus - I, Philadelphia Museum of Art
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Lake Avernus - I, Private Collection, England
    • Richard Wilson and Studio Lake Avernus - I (Classical Landscape, Lake Avernus), Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool

    Biographies

    • Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hugh Royds Brocklebank (1881-1965)
    • Colonel Maurice Harold Grant (1872-1962)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
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