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    Lago d'Agnano with Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - I)

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    Lago d'Agnano with Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - I)
    Lago d'Agnano with Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - I)
    Lago d'Agnano with Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - I)
    Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Lago d'Agnano with Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - I)
    Date
    c.1770-75 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 44.5 x 52.7 cm
    Imperial: 17 1/2 x 20 3/4 in.
    Collection
    Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven. To license images click here
    Accession Number
    B1981.25.682
    Wilson Online Reference
    P47A
    Description
    Lago d'Agnano, formerly situated eight kilometres west of Naples, is seen from the west, looking southeast across the lake and crater, past Naples towards Mount Vesuvius, smoking in the distance to the left. The peninsula of Sorrento is seen in the centre and the island of Capri on the right. Two women are in conversation in the centre-right foreground and a small boat plies the lake beyond them.
    Exhibited
    Richmond 1963 (18); London 1964-65 (56); New Haven 1965 (225); New Haven 1981 (2); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-3 (141); Rome 2014 (78)
    Provenance
    Agnews; acquired in the 1880s by the Hon. Robert Bruce and thereafter by family descent through Lady Elizabeth Babington-Smith to H.G. Babington-Smith; sold 1962 to Agnews; purchased by Paul Mellon, July 1962
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    Much smooth impasto but the handling is juicy and broad, including the figures in the foreground. Canvas shows through lower right and elsewhere, for example mid left. Possible pentimento mid-right edge over silhouette of trees. Little articulation in trees and hedges. Line of joining at horizon is normal. Very empty, but suffused sky with no birds. There are quite large areas of thinly-brushed paint in the foreground.
    Subject
    The waterfilled volcanic crater near Naples was a popular resort in ancient times on account of its hot, sulphurous springs but was drained in the 1870s in order to limit the spread of mosquito-borne malaria. It had been a major attraction for eighteenth-century Grand Tourists.
    Related Drawings
    D177 The Lago di Agnano, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford (WA1967.18)
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Paintings
    Pendant: P48A Lago d'Agnano with the Grotta del Cane II, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    Critical commentary
    This painting and its companion (P48A) are characteristic of the Italian landscapes that Wilson painted in England towards the end of his career. They are among the purer works of this period, all detail being sacrificed to the evocation of light and air, but without the clarity of light and precision of his earlier works. His tendency at this stage was to model forms by juxtaposing visible brush-strokes of different hues. Though late, this painting is based on a much earlier drawing (D177).
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    PM 1150
    426.
    Object ID: 1142
    Bibliography
    WGC, pp. 190-91, pl. 63a (version 1); Taylor 1963, cat. 18, pl. 210; Taylor 1964, cat. 56; Taylor 1965, cat. 225, pl. 71; Herrmann 1973, p. 56; Brown 1982, pp. 661-62, cat. 1892; Solkin 1982, p. 246, no. 141; Cormack 1985, pp. 254 & 255; Hogarth Reynolds Turner 2014, p. 286, repr. p. 228
    Location featured in work
    Lake Agnano, Italy
    More Information
    It was landscapes such as this, partially based on the landscapes of Claude Lorrain but more generalised in atmosphere and representing actual views, that largely formed the idea of Italian landscape current in England during the second half of the 18th century. They were eagerly copied and emulated after Wilson's death.
    Condition/Conservation
    Normal weave canvas. Little and shallow craquelure - fine lines and squares in the sky. Foamboard backboard.
    Kate Lowry has noted: Original canvas is a simple loose-weave linen with many uneven threads; 12 warps x13 weft threads per sq cm. All original turnover edges retained at the time of lining. Attached to stretcher through original and lining turnovers with hand made tacks. Paste lining is probably 19th century and stretcher dates from this treatment. Four member stretcher with provision for keying out. Commercially prepared white, oil ground covers all upper surface of canvas including turnovers. IR imaging does not show underdrawing. X-ray image shows that the smoke from the volcano was scratched through thick wet pale yellow paint and then painted in with a grey paint. Under magnification the smoke contains black and larger blue particles. XRF analysis shows presence of Prussian blue and earth pigments in the landscape, possibly ultramarine in sky. Under UV the few retouchings are largely in the foreground.
    Updated by Compiler
    2022-06-14 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • The Lago di Agnano, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) View of Lago d'Agnano, the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - I), Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Lago d'Agnano with Vesuvius in the Distance (Lago d'Agnano - 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
    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art, 29 July - 20 September 1981
    • Richmond Va., Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1963
    • London, Royal Academy, 1964-65
    • New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, 15 April - 20 June 1965
    • Rome, Palazzo Sciarra, 15 April - 20 July 2014

    Biographies

    • Paul Mellon (1907-1999)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the Eighteenth Century
    • Malcolm Cormack, A Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
    • Carolina Brook & Valter Curzi, Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner: British Painting and the Rise of Modernity
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