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    300 years
    Return to "Wilson and Europe 2014 " is linked to these Works 122 items
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    Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe

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    Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe
    Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe
    Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe
    Victoria & Albert Museum, London
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35: Niobe
    Date
    1752
    Medium
    Black chalk on white paper
    Dimensions
    Metric: 188 x 130 mm (volume: 203 x 143 mm)
    Imperial: 8 x 5 5/8 in.
    Collection
    Victoria & Albert Museum, London. To license image, click here
    Accession Number
    E.3586-1922
    Wilson Online Reference
    D53/35
    Description
    Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and Queen of Thebes, is shown trying to protect the last of her seven daughters from the arrows of Apollo and Diana.
    Exhibited
    London, Cardiff and New Haven 1982-83 (21); Tercentenary 2014 (16)
    Provenance
    Bt about 1922 from Miss Alice J. Bowles
    Related Paintings
    P90 The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    P90D Studio of Wilson, Apollo destroying the Children of Niobe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
    Critical commentary
    Page 35 from a sketchbook of 78 leaves containing Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752. The figure of Niobe is taken from the famous Antique sculptural group originally in the Villa Medici, Rome but from the 1770s in the Uffizi, Florence. The figures appear in a similar pose in P90 The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, Yale Center for British Art, which Wilson exhibited in 1760. A few years before his journey to Italy the Revd Joseph Spence had discussed the marble group at length and illustrated the central figures in his book, Polymetis. However in Wilson's first version of the subject P90A, painted in Rome perhaps as early as 1754, the group was composed differently. As noted by Robin Simon, Wilson's associates there, J.J. Winckelmann and Johannes Wiedewelt, made a particular study of the Niobe group, together with the other sculptures in the Villa Medici, in 1756-58. On the opposite page (p. 34 verso) is a framed rapidly-drawn view of the hill-town of Sermoneta, famed then as now for its connection with Lucrezia Borgia and inscribed by Wilson, 'Sermonetta'.
    Bibliography
    J. Spence, Polymetis, Book 2, London 1747, pp. 96-100 and 111; WGC, pp. 160-63, pl. 20a; Solkin 1982, pp. 152, 157; Wilson and Europe 2014, pp. 216-17; F. Nicolai, 'The 1584 Purchase Contract for the Medici Group of Niobe Sculptures', Burlington Magazine, vol. 162, no. 1402, January 2020, pp. 26-31
    More Information
    Only two sketchbooks by Wilson have survived - the present one (D53-D53/81) and D280-D280/33 Italian Sketchbook - Drawings, 1754, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
    Updated by Compiler
    2021-07-15 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Paintings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    • Studio of Wilson, Apollo destroying the Children of Niobe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    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
    This drawing is part of the "Italian Sketchbook Victoria & Albert Museum 1752" sketchbook
    View sketchbook pages
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