Richard Payne Knight was a connoisseur and scholar, who inherited a fortune from his grandfather, the ironmaster Richard Knight (1659-1745). He travelled to Italy in 1772-73 and 1776-77 and rebuilt the family seat at Downton Castle 1774-78. In 1781 he was elected a member of the Society of Dilettanti. During the 1790s he famously redesigned the estate of Downton in picturesque style and in 1794 published his didactic poem, The Landscape. Together with his Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, published in 1805, this was an important document in the literature of the Picturesque. In 1814, Payne Knght became a trustee of the British Museum, to which he bequeathed his collections of small bronzes, coins, gems, cameos and Old Master drawings, many of which had been acquired through Thomas Jenkins, q.v. This bequest included three drawings ascribed to Wilson but doubted by this compiler: NWD107 Outlet of the Emissario
NWD108 Entrance to the Cuniculo and
NWD108/1 The First Entrance to the Cuniculo.
Collector's Mark (British Museum): Lugt 1577