Skip to content
Log inRegister
    HomePaintingsDrawingsPrintsBrowse all worksWilson collectionsWilson collections mapTercentenary exhibitionOther exhibitionsProject highlightsThemes and mediaBiographiesBibliographical Resources
    Advanced search
    Work of ArtBiographiesExhibitionsBibliographical Resources
    Settings
    Pages
    300 years
    Return to "Cunningham 1829" is linked to these Works 7 items
    of 7

    Rome from the Villa Madama (Distant View of Rome from Monte Mario)

    This item is active and ready to use
    Rome from the Villa Madama (Distant View of Rome from Monte Mario)
    Rome from the Villa Madama (Distant View of Rome from Monte Mario)
    Rome from the Villa Madama (Distant View of Rome from Monte Mario)
    National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
    title=Credit line
    Larger imageShareFeedback
    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Rome from the Villa Madama (Distant View of Rome from Monte Mario)
    Date
    c.1763-65
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 100.3 x 135.3 cm
    Imperial: 39 1/2 x 53 1/4 in.
    Collection
    National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. To license images click here.
    Accession Number
    4879
    Wilson Online Reference
    P56B
    Description
    The view is towards the Alban Hills from a vantage point on Monte Mario popularised by Wilson's predecessor, Jan Frans van Bloemen (l'Orizzonte). To the right, among the trees, is the Villa Madama, beyond it is Castel Sant'Angelo and on the horizon, the cupolas of Santa Maria Maggiore are visible. Just in front of it, the setting sun is reflected off the façade of Santissima Trinità dei Monti.
    Exhibited
    SA 1765 (156) and/or RA 1770 (202) - a version; BI 1814 (210/214 - A View of Rome, lent Miss Brooke); London, Royal Academy, Old Masters 1903 (38); London 1925 (39); Manchester 1925 (51); London 1934 (249 - Distant View of Rome); Toronto Art Gallery, Old Masters, 1950 (49); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (110)
    Provenance
    Probably the version bought by the Marquis of Tavistock for 100 guineas; Miss Brooke; Sir Frederick Cook, Bart, Doughty House, Richmond Surrey; by descent to Sir Herbert Cook, Bart; bt by National Gallery of Canada, 1948
    Signature/inscription
    Signed on the stone ledge, lower left: RW [monogram R reversed]
    Subject
    The topographical account of contemporary Rome is reflected and contextualised in antiquity by details such as the funeral stele in the foreground.
    Related Drawings
    D225 The Villa Madama, Rome, with a Man seated in the Foreground, Private Collection, England
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] Jan Frans van Bloemen, l'Orizzonte (1662-1749), View of Rome from Monte Mario, 1736, ex-Delegazione Montedison, Rome, Sotheby's Milan, 8 June 1994 (268)
    [2] Jan Frans van Bloemen l'Orizzonte, A Panoramic View of Rome observed from Monte Mario, Sotheby's London, 8 Dec 2010 (37)
    [3] Ford 1951, pl. 40 reproduces a comparable drawing rightly attributed to a pupil.
    Critical commentary
    This is one of several known repetitions of P56, painted in 1753 for the Earl of Dartmouth. It is much more heavily modelled than P56 and executed in a wider range of colours. Other differences are the greater details and the trees at left and right. Ford (1951) thought there were reasons to suggest that it was painted after Wilson's return to England. According to Edward Edwards (1808), a version [probably this one] exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1765 was bought by the Marquis of Tavistock. Farington also recorded going to Bryant's Gallery in May 1796 with Sir George Beaumont and Nathaniel Dance 'to see the View of Rome by Wilson, which he sold to the Marquiss of Tavistock, 30 years ago for 100 gs.'
    Bibliography
    Edwards 1808, p. 79; Farington Diary, vol. 2, p. 559 (26 May 1796); Catalogue 1814, p. 22; Cunningham 1830, pp. 198-99; The Athenaeum, 10 January 1903, pp. 56-57; M.W. Brockwell, Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Frederick Cook, vol. 3, 1915, p. 17, no. 402, repr.; Commemorative Catalogue 1934 (114); Ford 1951, p. 34; Ford 1952, p. 311; WGC, p. 218 (version 1 of pl. 107a-b); Solkin 1982, p. 219; R. Beresford, Catalogue of European Paintings, Art Gallery of New South Wales, vol. 1, 2014, pp. 149-52); Solkin 2015, pp. 212-13
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/125
    More Information
    As noted in Solkin 2015, Wilson was the only British landscapist with direct experience of the fabled sites of Roman antiquity until the return of William Marlow from Europe in 1766.
    Updated by Compiler
    2021-02-18 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • The Villa Madama, Rome, with a Man seated in the Foreground, Private Collection, England

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Rome from the Villa Madama, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Rome from the Villa Madama, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven

    Additional Images

    • Contemporary Location Photograph of Rome from the Villa Madama,

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983
    • London, National Gallery, Millbank (Tate Gallery), 26 June - 30 September 1925
    • Manchester City Art Gallery, 22 October - 5 December 1925
    • London, British Institution, 1814
    • London, Royal Academy, 6 January - 17 March 1934

    Biographies

    • Marquess of Tavistock (1739-1767)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Joseph Farington, The Diary of Joseph Farington, July 1793 - December 1821
    • Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of Painters who have resided or been born in England; with critical Remarks on their Productions
    • 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
    • David Solkin, Art in Britain 1660-1815
    • Allan Cunningham, The Lives of the most eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Architects
    © Richard Wilson OnlineCreditsCopyright & DisclaimerPrivacy