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    Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I

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    Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I
    Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I
    Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I
    bpk | Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I
    Date
    Early 1760s (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 103.5 x 139 cm
    Imperial: 40 3/4 x 54 11/16 in.
    Collection
    Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek, Munich. To license images click here.
    Accession Number
    14559
    Wilson Online Reference
    P88
    Description
    Syon House appears on the right, seen from old Richmond Gardens, Kew across the River Thames. In the distance is the church of All Saints, Isleworth. The whole scene is bathed in a serene Claudean afternoon light. Under the trees in the right hand corner, an artist is drawing on white paper while an elegant man stands nearby between him and a fashionable woman seated on the grass. To their right is a gardener, sitting on his wheelbarrow, his blue coat hanging over a roller. Beyond to the left, groups of figures promenade or sit on the ground while in the foreground a seated nurse amuses a child. In the background William Kent's follies built for the late Queen Caroline are visible - the Hermitage (begun 1730) and beyond the bend, the domed circular Tuscan Temple. Birds fly distantly overhead.
    Exhibited
    RA 1776 (327) - a version; probably RA Old Masters. 1890 (157); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (93)
    Provenance
    Probably the Revd Benjamin Gibbons; John Gibbons; Christie's 26 May 1894 (71), bt Agnew for Sir Charles Tennant, Bart, The Glen, near Innerleithen, Peebleshire, Scotland, thence by descent; Lord Glenconner (1926-2010) in 1953; with Knoedler & Co, 15 Old Bond Street, London W.1 (#7320); Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd, 43 Old Bond Street, London W1X 4BA; acquired by the Neue Pinakothek, 1978
    Signature/inscription
    Inscribed on wheelbarrow, lower right: W
    Techniques and materials
    A brownish pink ground underpins the rough colour scheme, visible in the tree range at the left, which is painted onto a reserve as is common with Wilson. There are pentimenti at the left edges of the foliage right and in the girl's back in the group of two at the left.
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Twice (upper left and upper right corners of canvas, the right at 90 degrees), black paint: 389
    Labels
    [1] Top of central vertical member of stretcher, a round label inverted, inscribed in black ink: 86 | (1)
    [2] Bottom of left upright member of stretcher: printed museum label with typed inventory number, artist and title
    [3] Centre of lower horizontal member of stretcher: printed Agnews label with no. 41293
    Subject
    Syon House, situated on the banks of the Thames near Brentford, had been in the possession of the Percy family since 1604. The Earl of Northumberland (created duke in October 1766) employed Robert Adam in a scheme of fitting up the apartments in the grandest classical manner in 1762. This refurbishment, not fully realised, took seven years, during which time the park surrounding the house was refashioned by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown. Adam's designs for the remodelling of the interior were published as vol. 1 of his Works in Architecture in 1773. However, there is no evidence of any ducal patronage of Wilson and this scene was probably intended as generic rather than as the portrait of a private estate.
    Related Drawings
    D347 View of a Country House and Lake, The Courtauld Gallery, London
    Related Prints
    E72/13 Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Sion Park and House on Thames from Richmond Gardens, The British Museum (1854,0708.70) and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] George Lambert View of Copped Hall in Essex, from the Park, 1746, Tate, London
    [2] Antonio Canaletto, Syon House, 1749, Northumberland Collection
    [3] John Boydell. A View of Sion House looking towards Kew, 1753, coloured engraving, Orleans House Gallery and other impressions
    [4] Thomas Hastings, One of the Great Ponds between Hampstead and Highgate, London, looking towards the Surrey Hills, 1831, Bank of England, London (1141)
    Critical commentary
    Wilson produced a number of views of country houses following his return to England from Italy in 1757. He inherited the practice of showing a house and its setting as part of a larger landscape from George Lambert , who had pioneered it in the 1740s with such works as View of Copped Hall in Essex, from the Park, Tate, London. Here however Wilson has expressed the classical connotations of the area in pictorial terms by using a compositional formula plus a warm colouring, which overtly recall the works of Claude Lorrain. One of the versions of this composition was later praised by William Hazlitt: 'We consider this landscape ... as one of the most striking proofs of Wilson's genius, as it conveys not only the image, but the feeling, of nature and excites a new interest unborrowed from the eye, like the fine glow of a summer's day.' (see Bibliography).
    Bibliography
    Library of the Fine Arts 1832, p. 460; W. Hazlitt, Criticisms on Art, 1856, p. 186; C. Morland Agnew, Catalogue of the Pictures forming the Collection of Sir Charles Tennant, Bart, 1896, unpaginated; WGC, pp. 184-85 (probably Version 1 of pl. 54a); Solkin 1982, pp. 204-205; Neue Pinakothek, Katalog der Gemälde und Skulpturen, Munich-Cologne 2003, p. 428 (C. Heilmann); Das 19. Jahrhundert - Die Neue Pinakothek, eds. H.W. Rott and J. Kaak, Munich-Cologne 2003, pp. 44-45 (M. Hirsch); A. Aymonino, 'The Cult of Antiquity', Country Life, vol. 209, no. 4, 21 January 2015, pp. 38-47
    More Information
    In the early 1760s Wilson painted numerous English scenes, especially of the Thames Valley. Because of its long-standing connection with royalty and more recent association with literary figures, including James Thomson, Alexander Pope and other leading poets, the area round Syon, Richmond and Twickenham had acquired a reputation as England's 'classic ground', redolent of history and high culture. Private estates near London, like Syon, were frequently compared with the villa-retreats of the ancient Romans.
    Condition/Conservation
    Relined. Mounted and glazed in a narrow neo-classical 19th-century museum-style frame. Conserved in 1978. The painted area measures 101.3 x 136.5 cm (39 7/8 x 53 3/4 in.). The stretcher seems to be 19th-century of solid manufacture, with four upright and three horizontal members, generously keyed at the angles. It was once backed in grey paper over a creamy paper covering, as indicated by remnants attached to the stretcher. The painted surface is in good condition and is laid onto a soft brown ground, with areas reserved for the trees. Drying cracks at the lower right and a few other areas have been infilled but no significant damage appeared under UV light.
    Updated by Compiler
    2021-04-21 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • View of a Country House and Lake, The Courtauld Gallery, London

    Prints

    • Thomas Hastings after Wilson, Sion Park and House on Thames from Richmond Gardens, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Syon House from Richmond Gardens - II - Evening, Private Collection, England
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I, Old Westbury Gardens, New York
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Syon House from Richmond Gardens - I, Private Collection, England

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983

    Biographies

    • Sir Charles Tennant, 1st Bart (1823-1906)
    • George Lambert (1700-1765)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Anonymous, Library of the Fine Arts; or Repertory of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Engraving
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