Villa Borghesi (The Villa Borghese, Rome)

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Artist

Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)

Title

Villa Borghesi (The Villa Borghese, Rome)

Date

1754

Medium

Graphite, black chalk and stump heightened with white on grey-blue laid paper, laid down within original lilac wash border

Dimensions

Metric: Sheet: 283 x 422 mm
Imperial: Sheet: 11 1/8 x 16 5/8 in.

Collection

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

Accession Number

2019.288

Wilson Online Reference

D300

Description

The Villa Borghese is seen at the end of an avenue of trees, with three figures in the right foreground and others further back and to the left

Exhibited

Birmingham 1948-9 (71); London 1949 (70); Whitworth Art Gallery The University of Manchester 1973, British Artists in Europe (2)

Provenance

Commissioned by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth (1731-1801); by descent to the 7th Earl; sold Christie's, 29 January 1954 (4); Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd, London; Derek Lockett, Clonterbrook House, Cheshire; his sale, Sotheby's London, 15 March 1990 (66); with Agnews, London; Professor Ian Craft; Sotheby's London, An Exceptional Eye: A Private British Collection, 14 July 2010 (57); Private Collection, Canada; with Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker, Ltd, London 2018; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Texas, 2019 (The Stuart Collection, museum purchase funded by Francita Stuart Koelsch Ulmer in honor of Jonathan Yarker and Scott Wilcox)

Signature/inscription

See 'Mount Inscriptions'

Verso inscriptions

Numbered on mount: 52

Mount inscriptions

[1] Signed and dated lower left: R.W.f. Romae 1754.
[2] Inscribed on label lower centre: Villa | Borghesi
[3] Inscribed lower right: No. 2

Critical commentary

One of a major series of drawings commissioned by William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth 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 and artists of the day including William Lock of Norbury, and 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.

Bibliography

Farington Diary, vol. 7, p. 2775 (1 June 1806); Farington Biographical Note p. 12; Ford 1948, p. 345, no. 2; Ford 1951, p. 59, no. 51; Clark & Bowron 1985, p. 267 under cat. 195; Spencer-Longhurst 2012, pp. 57-58, fig. 32

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 all the surviving Dartmouth drawings, with their lilac wash borders, were made by Wilson or under his direction, perhaps by Jenkins.

Condition/Conservation

Mat size: 356 × 495 mm; 14 × 19 1/2 in. Mounted in a British neo-classical frame. In exceptionally good condition, largely due to the fact that the whole group remained hidden in a cupboard at Patshull House, Wolverhampton, until discovered by the then Lady Dartmouth in 1948.

Updated by Compiler

07/12/2020

Villa Borghesi (The Villa Borghese, Rome)

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