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    300 years
    "Ford May 1951" is linked to these Works
    of 12

    The Murder

    The Murder
    The Murder
    The Murder
    Private Collection, England / Photograph by John Hammond
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    The Murder
    Date
    1752 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 43.2 x 53.3 cm
    Imperial: 17 x 21 in.
    Collection
    Private Collection, England
    Accession Number
    BB28
    Wilson Online Reference
    P50A
    Exhibited
    Brighton 1920 (4 The Murder); Mold 1923; London 1925 (54 Meleager); Bangor 1925 (15 The Murder); Oxford 1937; London, Fine Art Society 1945, Masterpieces by British Landscape Painters of the 18th & 19th Centuries (30); Weston 2011 (24)
    Provenance
    Noel Desenfans [?]; Christie's 24 February 1798 (106 - A Landscape with a Storm); bt Phillips; Benjamin Booth (£27.16.6); the Revd R.S. Booth; Lady Ford; Richard Ford; Sr Francis Clare Ford; Captain Richard Ford; his sale, Christie's 19 June 1929 (14), bt P.M. Turner; Christie's 28 March 1947 (118), bt Brinsley Ford; private collection, England
    Subject
    The tension and drama of the killing in this painting reflected a common threat to Grand Tourists and others travelling in Italy and the scene represented would elicit an emotional response from many who had travelled abroad and been conscious of their own safety.
    Related Drawings
    D173 Study for the Murder, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
    D322 Landscape with Banditti: The Murder, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    Related Prints
    E72/32 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, The Murder, The British Museum and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Paintings
    P163 Meleager and Atalanta, Tate, London
    Critical commentary
    Similar in theme and various details to P50 (National Museum Wales, Cardiff) but with considerable differences in the landscape and probably datable to Wilson's last active years. Both versions were heavily influenced by the compositions, style and subject matter of the seventeenth-century Italian painter, Salvator Rosa, then a favourite artist for British patrons and collectors.
    Bibliography
    Booth Notes Doc. 1; Booth Notes Doc. 9 (22 - Storm of Lightning. Round Castle on a Rock. a Cataract - a Man lying murdered - a Woman by his Side begging her Life of the Assassin, 20 3/4 17); Ford May 1951, pp. 162-63, fig. 24; WGC, pp. 91, 158, pl. 14a; Walpole Society 1998-I, p. 17, BB29; Williams 2011, p. 34
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/17

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Study for the Murder, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
    • Landscape with Banditti: The Murder, National Museum Wales, Cardiff

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, The Murder, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Landscape with Banditti: The Murder, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Landscape with Banditti, National Museums Northern Ireland Collection Ulster Museum
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Unransomed (The Murder), Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool

    Paintings

    • Meleager and Atalanta, Tate, London

    Exhibitions

    • Bangor, University College of North Wales, 4 April - 23 May 1925
    • Brighton, Fine Art Galleries, 28 February - 2 May 1920
    • London, National Gallery, Millbank (Tate Gallery), 26 June - 30 September 1925
    • Weston Park, The Granary Art Gallery, 2 April - 3 July 2011

    Biographies

    • Benjamin Booth (1732-1807)
    • Sir Brinsley Ford (1908-1999)
    • The Revd Richard Salwey Booth (1762-1807)
    • Elizabeth Booth (1763-1819)
    • Marianne Booth, Lady Ford (1767-1849)
    • Sir Richard Ford (1758-1806)
    • Percy Moore Turner (1905-1952)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • Brinsley Ford, 'Richard Wilson in Rome: I - The Wicklow Wilsons'
    • Brinsley Ford and other authors, The Ford Collection
    • Gareth Williams, Masterpieces from the Ford Collection
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 1
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