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    Return to "Catalogue 1814" is linked to these Works 26 items
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    Pastoral Scene with Musicians by a classical Ruin

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    Pastoral Scene with Musicians by a classical Ruin
    Pastoral Scene with Musicians by a classical Ruin
    Pastoral Scene with Musicians by a classical Ruin
    Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Pastoral Scene with Musicians by a classical Ruin
    Date
    Early 1770s (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 68.8 x 50.8 cm
    Imperial: 27 1/16 x 20 in.
    Collection
    Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    WA1962.17.30
    Wilson Online Reference
    P177C
    Exhibited
    [?] BI 1814 (184/187 - A landscape); Birmingham 1948-9 (39); London 1949 (38); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (139)
    Provenance
    Charles Lambert; Christie's 7 March 1812 (93 - A Landscape with a Tower a rich and brilliant specimen), bt Samuel Rogers for £52.10s; Rogers sale, Christie's 2 May 1856 (582 or 696), bt Radclyffe or Bayly respectively; Baroness Burdett-Coutts; Christie's 4 May 1922 (81), bt Hibbard or Hubbard; Mrs F.L. Evans; bequeathed by Francis Falconer Madan, 1962
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Stretcher inscribed: 'Miss Burdett Coutts & (45) Wilson'
    Labels
    [1] 'Samuel Rogers - mentioned in Farington's Diaries'
    Subject
    A version was early identified with the ruins near Baiae just north of Naples but the scene is probably an evocation of pastoral contentment rather than being topographically accurate. This area did serve as a vehicle for visual amalgamations of Roman glory on the one hand and Arcadian perfection on the other.
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    This is a fragment of a larger canvas, seemingly cut in two during the 19th century. The other piece is P177B River Scene with Castle, Victoria & Albert Museum. If the two works were to be reunited, with the present work on the left, they would form a less than complete version of P177 River Mouth with Peasants dancing, Neue Pinakothek, Munich. Solkin noted that the missing areas include a narrow vertical strip between the two fragments and at least 2 1/2 in. of sky in P177B. Confusingly, another version of the entire composition is in the Victoria & Albert Museum (P177A).
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    A988
    Bibliography
    [?] Catalogue 1814, p. 21; Hazlitt 1843-44, p. lxvii, no. 62 Landscape - a tower on the near right; [?] Cook & Wedderburn, vol. 3, p. 189; WGC, p. 217, pl. 105b; Herrmann 1973, p. 54, pl. 45; Solkin 1982, pp. 243-45; The Ashmolean Museum: Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Paintings, 2004, p. 245
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/122
    Condition/Conservation
    Dimensions in frame: 87.8 x 69.8 x 8.5 cm. Relined. The varnish appears to be thick, even and glossy. Under it appears to be an earlier discoloured (yellowed) varnish, which has losses in places, giving a patchy appearance to the sky, where blue retouchings are visible. Unspecified damage is mentioned on an undated photograph in the curatorial file. Carved wooden frame; not glazed or backed.
    Updated by Compiler
    2018-08-28 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) River Mouth with Peasants dancing (Mediterranean Coastal Landscape at Dusk), Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek, Munich
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) River Mouth with Peasants dancing ('Evening'), Private Collection
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) River Mouth with Peasants dancing , Victoria & Albert Museum, London
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Evening: River Scene with Castle (River and Castle: Evening), Victoria & Albert Museum, London

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983
    • Birmingham City Art Gallery, 17 November 1948 - 9 January 1949
    • London, Tate Gallery, 22 January - 14 March 1949
    • London, British Institution, 1814

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the Eighteenth Century
    • Anonymous, Catalogue of Pictures by the late William Hogarth, Richard Wilson, Thomas Gainsborough, and J. Zoffani. Exhibited by permission of the proprietors in honour of the memory of those distinguished artists, and for the improvement of British art
    • Edward Tyas Cook & John Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin Library Edition
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