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    The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina)

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    The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina)
    The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina)
    The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina)
    Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery
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    Artist
    Style of Wilson
    Title
    The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina)
    Date
    Undated
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 34.4 x 43.3 cm
    Imperial: 13 9/16 x 17 1/16 in.
    Collection
    Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery. To license images click here.
    Accession Number
    00303
    Wilson Online Reference
    NWP94B
    Description
    At the right a renaissance building surmounts a classical structure which has been built on a rock or artificial rampart. In the centre foreground a man sits resting by a rock and a woman with a baby in arms stands next to him. The ground falls away to a river and bridge at the left.
    Exhibited
    Bath, Victoria Art Gallery, Masterpieces from West Country Art Galleries, 20 May-1 July 1989; Gloucester 2014 (unnumbered)
    Provenance
    With Spink; Stanley Marling, Amberley, Gloucester; bequeathed to Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery 1963
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    The figures are not up to Wilson's standard. The colours in the tower look later. The background, notably the bridge lower left, is blobby and indistinct.
    Subject
    A number of locations have been proposed over the years, all of which Constable dismissed, apart from Sta Maria Aventina, which he believe fitted the composition in some respects but not all, notably the inclusion of the bridge at the left, which occupies the position of the Pons Sublicius, destroyed in 780 AD.
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] J.M.W. Turner, Wilson Sketchbook, 1796-97, p. pp. 98-99, Tate, London
    Critical commentary
    As noted by W.G. Constable, this version differs from the P94 Upton House, National Trust painting in minor details, in having a tower beyond the bridge at the extreme left and in omitting the stick resting against the rock in the right foreground.
    Bibliography
    WGC, p. 198 pl. 76a (version 1)
    Condition/Conservation
    Dimensions with frame: 49.7 x 58.5 cm. Deliberately damaged by criss-cross gouging 1979. Kate Lowry has noted: Painting has a glossy varnish. The figures and distant landscape are unconvincing. The whole rather coarsely painted. Under UV a large X-shaped damage caused by vandalism is visible.

    Work of Art

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina), Upton House, National Trust
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Convent on the Rock (Santa Maria Aventina), Magdalen College, Oxford

    Exhibitions

    • Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery, 2 January - 1 March 2014

    Biographies

    • Stanley Marling (1864-1963)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
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