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    300 years
    Return to "Wilson and Europe 2014 " is linked to these Works 122 items
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    Portrait of Richard Wilson

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    Portrait of Richard Wilson
    Portrait of Richard Wilson
    Portrait of Richard Wilson
    National Museum Wales, Cardiff
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    Artist
    Anton Raphael Mengs
    Title
    Portrait of Richard Wilson
    Date
    1752 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 84.6 x 75.2 cm
    Imperial: 33 5/16 x 29 5/8 in.
    Collection
    National Museum Wales, Cardiff. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    NMW A 113
    Wilson Online Reference
    NWP1
    Description
    Wlson is shown half-length from his proper right side, sitting before his easel with palette and brushes in his left hand. Richly but informally dressed in a brown flowered gown and turban, he has been working on a landscape.
    Exhibited
    Manchester 1857 (British Portrait Gallery, 311); Wrexham 1876 (298); Bangor 1925 (40); Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, London Anton Raphael Mengs and his British Patrons, 1993 (18); Cardiff, Manchester and London, 2003-4 (14); Tercentenary 2014 (1)
    Provenance
    Richard Wilson; Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th baronet; by descent to Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 8th baronet; Sotheby's 5 February 1947 (45), bt Renwick; presented by the National Art Collections Fund to the National Museum of Wales, 1947
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Related Drawings
    Edward Penny [?] after Mengs, Portrait of Richard Wilson, RA , The British Museum (1881,0611.201)
    Related Prints
    [1] E84 William Bromley after Mengs, Portrait of Richard Wilson, oval, 1790
    [2] William Bond after Taylor after Mengs, stipple engraving, 1812
    [3] Charles Pye after Mengs, 1822
    [4] William Bond after Mengs, 1824
    Related Paintings
    P6 Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Self-Portrait, Private Collection, USA
    Related Works by Other Artists
    Edward Penny, Portrait of Richard Wilson, National Portrait Gallery (NPG 1803)
    John Taylor (1739-1838) after Mengs, Portrait of Richard Wilson, location unknown
    Critical commentary
    This portrait, painted in Rome, shows Wilson in his late thirties at the outset of his career as a landscape painter. The painting on his easel may be intended as the one he is known to have given Mengs in exchange for this portrait. The present work is the only undisputed individual image of Wilson by another artist. It passed to his patron, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn either at the sitter's death in 1782 or at about the tiime of the Wynnstay landscape commissions (P165 & P166) in 1770-71. According to Farington in 1801, Wilson's pupil Thomas Jones, told him that 'Mengs, the German Painter, who was in great repute at Rome, said that He never met with but 2 English artists of superior genius, they were R. Wilson - and Athenian Stuart.'
    Bibliography
    G.N. d'Azara, Opere di Antonio Rafaello Mengs, Rome 1787, xlii-xliii; Hodges 1790; Farington Diary, vol. 4, p. 1554 (27 May 1801); Edwards 1808, pp. 78-79; Wright 1824, p. 75 & frontispiece; Cunningham 1830, p. 198; Cooper 1948 1; WGC, pp. 67-8, 234, pl.1; S. Roettgen, Mengs and his British Patrons, 1993, pp. 12-13, 83-85; Ingamells 1997, p. 1007; Roettgen 1999, vol. 1, pp. 303-305, cat. 236; Sumner & Smith 2003, p. 124, repr.; Hernon 2013, p. 10, pl. 11; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 206
    More Information
    The portrait was copied by Cooper and Constable and there are numerous derivations and graphic reproductions, testaments to Wilson's enduring fame as a leading British landscapist, which continued throughout the 19th century.
    Updated by Compiler
    2018-01-16 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • E84 William Bromley after Mengs, Portrait of Richard Wilson, oval, 1790

    Versions

    • Ascribed to Wilson, View of Carlton House, with a Royal Party in the Grounds, Tate, London

    Paintings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Self-Portrait, Private Collection, USA

    Exhibitions

    • National Museum & Gallery, Cardiff, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and National Gallery, London, 21 May 2003 - 15 February 2004
    • Manchester, Exhibition Hall, 5 May - 17 October 1857
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014
    • Wrexham, North Wales, UK, 15 July - 22 November 1876

    Biographies

    • Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Bart (1748-1789)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Douglas Cooper, 'The Iconography of Richard Wilson'
    • Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painters who have resided or been born in England; with critical Remarks on their Productions
    • Paul Hernon, Sir Watkin's Tours: Excursions to France, Italy and North Wales, 1768-71
    • John Ingamells, A Dictionary of English and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701-1800
    • Steffi Roettgen, Anton Rafael Mengs (1728-1779)
    • Ann Sumner & Greg Smith eds., Thomas Jones (1742-1803): An Artist rediscovered
    • Allan Cunningham, The Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Architects
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