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    Return to "Booth Notes Doc. 4" is linked to these Works 25 items
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    Celadon and Amelia

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    Celadon and Amelia
    Celadon and Amelia
    Celadon and Amelia
    Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
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    Artist
    William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801) after Wilson
    Title
    Celadon and Amelia
    Date
    Published 10 June 1766
    Medium
    Line engraving and etching on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream laid paper
    Dimensions
    Metric: Sheet: 460 x 565 mm; plate: 445 x 549 mm
    Imperial: Sheet: 18 1/8 x 22 1/4 in.; plate: 17 1/2 x 21 5/8 in.
    Collection
    Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven. To license images click here
    Accession Number
    B1977.14.14566
    Wilson Online Reference
    E18
    Description
    Celadon at the centre, looks to the heavens with his arms outstretched in disbelief and grief; Amelia lies dead at his feet. In the background stands a house before which a shepherd drives his sheep up a hill, at the summit of which is a fortress. To the right, a bay with stormy seas and a broken bridge are discernible in the flash of lightning.
    Exhibited
    Tercentenary 2014 (101)
    Provenance
    Acquired 1977
    Signature/inscription
    Lettered below the image, left: 'R.Wilson pinxit Londini.' | 'The tempest caught them on the tender walk, | _____________ from his void embrace, - | Mysterious Heaven! that moment to the ground, | A blacken'd corse, was struck the beauteous maid.'; lower centre: 'CELADON and AMELIA | from an ORIGINAL PICTURE, in the Collection of Wm. Lock Esqr. | Publsh'd June 10th. 1766 as the Act directs, by Wm. Woollett in Long's Court, Leicester Fields, & Ryland & Bryer at the King's Arms in Cornhill, LONDON.'; lower right: 'Browne Aqua forti fecit. Woollett Sculpt.' | 'But who can paint the lover, as he stood, | Pierc'd by severe amazement, hating life, | Speechless, and fix'd in all the death of woe! | Thompson's Summer, v. 1191. 1214.'
    Inscribed in blue pencil lower right: Woollett
    Verso inscriptions
    1) Graphite., centre left. 'F/T/-'
    2) Graphite, lower left 'IR-784/ 555 / No. 114.2 / no/35'
    Subject
    The subject derives from The Seasons by the Scottish poet and playwright, James Thomson (1700-1748). Seven lines of verse from Summer, first published in 1727, are arranged to the left and right of the title.
    Related Drawings
    D135 Broken Trees on a Mountain, The British Museum
    D362 Study for Celadon and Amelia, Victoria & Albert Museum, London
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    The engraving is of an unlocated painting exhibited by Wilson at the Society of Artists in 1765 (157), entitled A Summer Storm with the Story of the Two Lovers from Thompson (Celadon and Amelia). Its original owner is cited as William Lock of Norbury, the artist's travelling companion from Venice to Rome 15 years previously. Solkin has described the subject as a modern, English, Christian equivalent to the 'Destruction of the Children of Niobe' (see P90 and other versions), noting that such a moral theme was well suited to a landscape painter of Wilson's Grand Style pretensions. The design appropriately recalls storm scenes by Gaspard Dughet and mountain views by Salvator Rosa, both of whom were admired by Thomson.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    Object ID: 40373
    Bibliography
    Booth Notes Doc. 4; Booth Notes Doc. 7; Fagan 1885, p. 26 cat. LVII, 6th State; WGC, p. 165 under pl. 24b; Solkin 1982, pp. 220-21 (entry on one of several impressions at the British Museum); Clayton 1997, pp. 190, 193, 205; S. Mitchell, 'James Thomson's Picture Collection and British History Painting', Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 23, no. 1 (2011), pp. 127-28; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 284
    More Information
    WGC notes that a line engraving of the composition, published in France by J.J. Avril (1771-1835) and derived from the Woollett engraving, in earlier impressions has the name of Wilson as painter but substitutes that of Vernet in later impressions.

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Richard Wilson, Broken Trees on a Mountain, The British Museum
    • Richard Wilson, Study for Celadon and Amelia, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

    Versions

    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801)after Wilson, Celadon and Amelia, National Museum Wales, Cardiff

    Exhibitions

    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • John Browne (1742-1801)
    • William Lock 'of Norbury' (1732-1810)
    • Paul Mellon (1907-1999)
    • William Woollett (1735-1785)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Louis Fagan, A Catalogue Raisonné of the engraved Works of William Woollett
    • Timothy Clayton, The English Print, 1688-1802
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 4: Biographical Fragments and abandoned List of Works
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 7: List of Prints after Wilson's Paintings
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