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    300 years
    Return to "Solkin 1982" is linked to these Works 176 items
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    The Destruction of the Children of Niobe

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    The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
    The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
    The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
    Private Collection at Ashridge, England
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
    Date
    c.1754-55 (undated)
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 125.2 x 174.2 cm
    Imperial: 49 5/16 x 68 9/16 in.
    Collection
    Private Collection at Ashridge, England
    Accession Number
    117
    Wilson Online Reference
    P90A
    Description
    Eleven of Niobe's children are killed by the gods Apollo and Artemis in a dramatic, sublime landscape. Wilson's stormy setting emphasises the horror of the narrative by the broken trees, reeds bent with the wind, tumultuous seas, the fire in the distant town, the agitated skies, with lightning striking the mountain, and the lurid light on the distant horizon. The tree-trunk at the left has been struck by the force of the gods' appearance and has broken in two, while the brilliance of their aura highlights the neighbouring trunk.
    Exhibited
    Tercentenary 2014 (88)
    Provenance
    Commissioned in Rome by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, c.1754-55; 1st Duke of Sutherland, Stafford House, London; 1st Earl of Ellesmere, Bridgewater House, London; thence by descent
    Signature/inscription
    Signed on tree trunk, lower left: RW
    Subject
    This painting is inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book 6, lines 144-312. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus and Queen of Thebes, is punished for having dared to suggest, because she had seven sons and seven daughters, that she was superior to the goddess Leto (or Latona). Apollo and Artemis, children of Leto, killed all of Niobe's offspring in revenge and she herself wept until she was turned into stone.
    Related Drawings
    D53/35 Niobe from An Italian Sketchbook Victoria & Albert Museum Sketchbook p. 35
    D325 The Children of Niobe, The British Museum (1847,0723.107)
    D355 Recumbent Male Nude, National Museum Wales, Cardiff (NMW A 1885)
    D369 Ascribed to Wilson, Landscape Study, Victoria & Albert Museum
    Related Prints
    E69 John Henry Wright after Wilson, Niobe, The British Museum (1860,0211.610) and other impressions
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Related Paintings
    Pendant: P119A Phaeton's Petition to Apollo, Private Collection
    Related Works by Other Artists
    [1] Gaspard Dughet, The Cascade, late 1660s, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
    [2] William Hodges (1744-1797) after Wilson, Niobe, graphite, brown and white chalk, 370 x 425 mm, ex-Paul Sandby collection, Christie's 12 December 1981 (40i). Location unknown.
    [3] Jacques-Louis David, Apollo and Diana attacking the Children of Niobe, 1772, Dallas Museum of Art, USA
    Critical commentary
    W.G. Constable believed that this was a later elaboration of the design of P90 (Yale Center for British Art), in which coherence has to some extent been lost. But it is more likely to be the first version of the subject, painted for Bridgewater while Wilson was still in Italy, with his original figures replaced by Placido Constanzi (1702-1759). The substitution certainly applies to the two figures of the gods as a pentiment is visible below Apollo and to his left, which echoes his upraised right arm. The trajectory of the arrow in the back of the foreground figure at the right also suggests that it was fired from a lower angle. There seems to be a pentiment next to the central female figure. Much of the background is close in style to Wilson's supporter, Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789), from whom Bridgewater also commissioned four paintings in 1756, (even though Vernet had returned to France in 1753). Wilson's stylistic debts to Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) and Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675) are also evident.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    BH 271
    Bibliography
    Booth Notes Doc. 4; Booth Notes Doc. 5, p. 1; W.Y. Ottley, The Marquis of Stafford's Collection of Pictures, 1818, vol. 4, p. 141; J. Young, A Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures, of the most noble the Marquis of Stafford ..., 1825, vol. 2, no. 242; Hazlitt 1843-44, vol. 2, p. xlv, no. 289 - Landscape; with the Story of Niobe [Repetition of the picture in the National Gallery]; Borenius 1944, p. 211; Grant 1945, p. 44; WGC, pp. 160-63, pl. 20b; Solkin 1982, pp. 201-2, n. 3; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 274; P. Humfrey, 'The 3rd Duke of Bridgewater as a Collector of Old Master Paintings', Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 27, no. 2, 2015, pp. 214, 224, n. 28; P. Humfrey, 'The 2nd Marquess of Stafford and the Stafford Gallery', Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 28, no. 1, 2016, p. 48
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/22
    More Information
    In 1808 the painting hung in the ante-room at the newly extended Cleveland House, St James's, along with Turner's Bridgewater Seapiece, as one of the Marquess of Stafford' s relatively few British paintings
    Condition/Conservation
    Kate Lowry has noted: In a contemporary Maratta frame. Canvas size: 123 x 171.8 cm (48 7/16 x 67 5/8 in.) Painted on a coarse, simple weave linen about 8-10 threads per square cm. Stretcher is modern and possibly dates from the relining. Seven members with square mortice joints and provision for keying out. Original bars were approximately 55 mm wide judging by vection cracks at upper edge. The original canvas has been glue relined with original turnovers incorporated on the face of the stretcher. These turnovers are unprimed but edges of original ground are present and its colour is a pale pink/brown, similar to that found in other Roman Wilsons such as P56 Rome from the Villa Madama, Yale Center for British Art, and P64 Rome from the Ponte Molle, National Museum Wales, Cardiff. Pentimenti around left and central figure groups suggest the figures have been altered, and give some substance to the anecdote that Bridgewater had another artist repaint Wilson's figures. Apollo was originally painted considerably lower, which would make more sense of the position of the arrow in the back of the woman at right of foreground. Most of the figures appear to be painted with greater attention to detail than is normal for Wilson.
    Updated by Compiler
    2021-06-03 00:00:00

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Studies and Designs done in Rome in the Year 1752, p. 35 Niobe, Victoria & Albert Museum
    • The Children of Niobe, The British Museum
    • Recumbent Male Nude, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • Ascribed to Wilson, Landscape Study, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

    Prints

    • John Henry Wright after Wilson, Niobe, The British Museum

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, The National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Destruction of Niobe's Children, ex-National Gallery; destroyed 1944
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Destruction of Niobe's Children, Private Collection, Devon
    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) The Destruction of the Children of Niobe, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, New Haven
    • Studio of Wilson, Apollo destroying the Children of Niobe, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    Paintings

    • Phaeton's Petition to Apollo, Private Collection (Pendant)

    Exhibitions

    • New Haven, Yale Center for British Art & Cardiff, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, 6 March - 29 October 2014

    Biographies

    • Lord Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater (1736-1803)
    • Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)
    • Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Col. Maurice Harold Grant, 'Richard Wilson's Niobe'
    • Anon [Tancred Borenius], Richard Wilson's 'Niobe'
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 4: Biographical Fragments and abandoned List of Works
    • Benjamin Booth, Unpublished Notes, Document 5: List of Wilson's Works with Owners
    • William Hazlitt, Criticisms on Art
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