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    300 years
    Return to "WGC" is linked to these Works 387 items
    of 387

    Head of an old Man

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    Head of an old Man
    Head of an old Man
    Head of an old Man
    Private Collection
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Head of an old Man
    Date
    c.1752 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 49 x 38 cm [unseen]
    Imperial: 19 1/8 x 15 in. [unseen]
    Collection
    Location Unknown
    Wilson Online Reference
    P38
    Exhibited
    BI 1853 (148); London, J.A. Tooth Galleries 1951 (5, lent D.J. Lucey)
    Provenance
    Painted in Rome before 14 November 1752; given by Wilson to Ralph Howard (Viscount Wicklow from 1785) together with seven other paintings ordered by him and described by the artist as 'a head to match the Capuchin' (P39 Head of a Capuchin Monk, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery); Earls of Wicklow; perhaps 'A Head of St Jerome - Wilson', in an undated inventory (pre-1820), though this may refer to P39; sold with the contents of Shelton Abbey, Arklow, Co. Wicklow, Ireland at Sotheby's London, 23 October 1950 (1595 as by Denner); bt Father D.J. Lucey; Sotheby's 1 December 1954 (146), bt Leger; bt by the Welsh Steel Company, later subsumed by British Steel
    Related Paintings
    P39 Head of a Capuchin, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery
    Critical commentary
    One of two heads (see also P39) painted vaguely in the manner of Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1683-1754), who became Director of the Venetian Academy in 1750, the year of Wilson's arrival in Venice. Prints after his head studies, rich in chiaroscuro, were eagerly acquired by collectors from England.
    Bibliography
    Ford May 1951, pp. 165-66, fig. 28; WGC, p.156, pl. 10b; Solkin 1982 under cat. 64; Clark & Bowron, p. 255 under cat. 165; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 58, fig. 52

    Work of Art

    Paintings

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782), Head of a Capuchin, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery

    Biographies

    • Ralph Howard, Viscount Wicklow (1726-1789)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Anthony M. Clark and Edgar Peters Bowron, Pompeo Batoni: A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text
    • Brinsley Ford, 'Richard Wilson in Rome: I - The Wicklow Wilsons'
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