River Landscape: Evening

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Private Collection

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Artist

Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)

Title

River Landscape: Evening

Date

Early 1770s

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

Metric: 48.2 x 61.4 cm
Imperial: 19 x 24 3/16 in.

Collection

Private Collection, Wales

Wilson Online Reference

P183

Provenance

With Max Rothschild, London; 1941, with Agnew's, sold to J.H. Patterson, 1941; with Gooden and Fox, London; bt Mr & Mrs Sydney Ernest Prestige; Mrs C.K. Prestige, sold Sotheby's 3 April 1968 (60), bt Agnew's; Dr Denis John Williams; thence by descent; Miles Wynn Cato Gallery, Ludlow

Techniques and materials

Painted in an uncharacteristically impressionist fashion. The figures are also uncharacteristic. Some of the pigments are also unusual, e.g the purple on the horizon. Although unusually filmy the tree is painted over a reserve leaving the ground to show around the edges of the foliage to give the tree a light and airy appearance. Dark underdrawing lines are clearly visible positioning both the figure of the sleeping shepherd and the general shape of the far riverbank.

Critical commentary

The poetry and lyricism of the composition demonstrate Wilson's artistic imagination more than any specific topographical intent. The relative scale of the foreground and middle ground figures seems miscalculated in a way unusual for Wilson.

Bibliography

WGC, pp. 95, 231, pl. 129b

Condition/Conservation

In an eighteenth-century Maratta frame. Relined. Under UV little later intervention was seen and no signature was visible.
Kate Lowry has noted: Simple weave canvas, glue relined. Original turnovers removed. Pale grey commercial ground. Sky underpainted pale pink at upper left. Foreground underpainted warm transparent brown. In many areas the paint is thinly applied leaving the underpaint easily visible. Possibly slightly unfinished. Recently cleaned and retouched by Annabelle Monaghan. Under UV light minor recent retouches are visible across the sky; also minor retouches in heads of figures at lower left and around animals at lower right. Painted lines in the right hand figure and dark purplish tones on the horizon may be earlier oil retouches. There is a fill and retouch in the main tree.

River Landscape: Evening

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