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    Caernarvon Castle

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    Caernarvon Castle
    Caernarvon Castle
    Caernarvon Castle
    Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Caernarvon Castle
    Date
    c.1745 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 64.8 x 104.9 cm
    Imperial: 25 1/2 x 41 5/16 in.
    Collection
    Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven. To license images click here
    Accession Number
    B1976.7.174
    Wilson Online Reference
    P12A
    Description
    In the foreground the artist, perhaps intended as Wilson himself, is drawing on a white sheet of paper pinned to a board. Several tiny people are visible to the right of the castle and there is a figure caulking a boat on the beach to the right.
    Exhibited
    Rotterdam 1955 (69); Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, A Hundred Years of British Landscape Painting (1750-1850), 1956 (4); New Haven 1977 (21); Yale Center for British Art, Presences of Nature, 1982-3 (III.i); Sydney 1998 (21)
    Provenance
    Anon. sale, Christie's, 3 June, 1901 (145), bt S.T. Smith; New York Art Market, c.1934; John Mitchell & Sons, London, c. 1934; Geoffrey Hart; Mrs D. Hart, Forest Row, Sussex; Bryan Jenks, Astbury Hall, Shropshire; Edward Speelman; acquired by Paul Mellon, July 1965
    Signature/inscription
    Signed lower right: R.W.; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    The lighting is beautiful and especially limpid on the hill to the right. The water is painted in round the patron's head. The artist might have been drawn in the nude from the musculature of his back. Note the lovely squiggle of his coat tails. The reflection of the castle is beautiful but people are not accurately reflected. Note the shepherd silhouetted in red at the top of the hill. The flocks below him may be rocks when magnified. The foliage of the right-hand tree is painted over the highlit clouds behind. The tree trunks to the right have juicy cream/white/pink impastoed highlighting.
    Subject
    Caernarvon Castle is located on the northern banks of the River Seiont on the Caernarvonshire coast in North Wales, across the Menai Straits from the Island of Anglesey. Its massive ruins offered the traveller in search of the picturesque an impressive reminder of Britain's heroic past. The castle was begun by Edward I in 1284 and his son Edward, the first English Prince of Wales, was born in the great Eagle Tower on 25th April that year.
    Related Prints
    E27 William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson, Carnarvon Castle, The British Museum and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] Joseph Wright of Derby, Caernarvon Castle by Moonlight, c.1780-85, Manchester City Galleries (1905.7)
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    Object ID: 4996
    Bibliography
    Pennant 1784, pp. 214-19; WGC, pp. 93, 94, 109, 119, 173 pl. 32a; The Connoisseur, June 1956; Herrmann 1973, p. 57; Cormack 1985, pp. 250 & 251
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/38
    More Information
    The castle is depicted as a crumbling ruin, with much of its monumental structure obscured or missing. This reflects the romantic approach evident in the writings of the day, as well as Wilson's awareness of the nascent picturesque movement with its interest in irregular forms and surfaces rather than topographical verisimilitude.
    Condition/Conservation
    Relined. Interesting 'knotty' craquelure. Foamboard backboard. Four member stretcher with square mortice joints, not original. Probably dates from lining. Simple weave original canvas has lost its turnover edges and is glue lined onto similar weight canvas. All edges are covered by a black painted tape making it difficult to examine, however the X-ray suggests the edges of the original fall short of the stretcher size by about 8mm all round and are slightly rough, not cut with a knife and ruler. Original simple weave canvas is quite coarse across the central area and cusping is visible in X-ray at left and lower edges. The X-ray also shows a few pentimenti: the top of the bluff at right has been flattened off slightly; there are minor alterations to the left hand towers and a small tower has been painted out at the right of the castle. Ground layer has an extremely gritty texture throughout, which could be due to coarse material being included in it or the formation of lead salts as the ground aged. XRF examination was inconclusive showing only lead and chalk. The cross-sections show a double ground layer, the upper containing carbon particles and the lower ochre and some clear areas which may indicate the formation of lead soaps in ground. Under UV minor retouched losses in sky upper left and foreground lower left, as well as in tree trunk lower right. The pentiment above Twt Hill is retouched as well as the cracks above castle in sky. Signature lower right corner appears to have been left uncleaned and the upstroke of the 'W' retouched. The IR images suggest that the figure of the gentleman in the foreground was first placed a little to the left of his present position. There is a little underdrawing to head and arm of artist seated in foregroun but no other underdrawing visible elsewhere. The pentiment at the top of Twt Hill looks like a quarry edge in IR. XRF showed earth colours in foreground and foliage, Prussian blue in gentleman's coat, Ultramarine and Prussian blue in sky, Naples yellow in boatbuilder's costume and vermilion in fire. Conservation record shows it was cleaned in 1998 by Stephen Kornhauser, who removed the varnish, brush revarnishing with mastic before retouching and giving final spray coat of damar varnish with Tinuvin.

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson, Carnarvon Castle, The British Museum
    • William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson, Carnarvon Castle, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    • William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson,Prospect of Caernarfon Castle from the North, The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
    • William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson, Carnarvon Castle, the Birthplace of Edward II, in North Wales, The British Museum
    • William Byrne (1743-1805) after Wilson, Caernarvon Castle, National Museum Wales, Cardiff

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Caernarvon Castle with Anglesea in the Distance, Private Collection, England
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Summer Evening (Caernarvon Castle) (Formerly Conway Castle), Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Caernarvon Castle, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Caernarvon Castle, National Museum Wales, Cardiff

    Exhibitions

    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, 19 April - 18 September 1977
    • Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, 5 March - 28 April 1955
    • Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2 May - 5 July 1998

    Biographies

    • Paul Mellon (1907-1999)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the Eighteenth Century
    • Malcolm Cormack, A Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
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