Celadon and Amelia

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Celadon and Amelia

Birmingham Museums Trust

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Artist

William Woollett (1735-1785) and John Browne (1741-1801) after Wilson

Title

Celadon and Amelia

Date

Published 10 June 1766

Medium

Engraving

Dimensions

Metric: 461 x 563 mm
Imperial: 18 1/8 x 22 1/8 in.

Collection

Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery. To license images click here.

Accession Number

1939P665

Wilson Online Reference

E18A

Description

Celadon at the centre, looks to the heavens with his arms outstretched in disbelief and grief; Amelia lies dead at his feet. In the background stands a house before which a shepherd drives his sheep up a hill, at the summit of which is a fortress. To the right, a bay with stormy seas and a broken bridge are discernible in the flash of lightning.

Provenance

Acquired 1939

Signature/inscription

Lettered below the image, left: 'R.Wilson pinxit Londini.' / 'The tempest caught them on the tender walk, | _____________ from his void embrace, - | Mysterious Heaven! that moment to the ground, | A blacken'd corse, was struck the beauteous maid.'; lower centre: 'CELADON and AMELIA | from an ORIGINAL PICTURE, in the Collection of Wm. Lock Esqr. | Publsh'd June 10th. 1766 as the Act directs, by Wm. Woollett in Green Street, Leicester Fields, & Ryland & Bryer at the King's Arms in Cornhill, LONDON.'; lower right: 'Browne Aqua forti fecit. Woollett Sculpt.' | 'But who can paint the lover, as he stood, | Pierc'd by severe amazement, hating life, | Speechless, and fix'd in all the death of woe! | Thompson's Summer, v. 1191. 1214.'

Subject

The subject derives from The Seasons by the Scottish poet and playwright, James Thomson (1700-1748). Seven lines of verse from Summer, first published in 1727, are arranged to the left and right of the title.

Related Drawings

D135 Broken Trees on a Mountain, The British Museum
D362 Study for Celadon and Amelia, Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Versions

See 'Links' tab

Critical commentary

The engraving is of an unlocated painting exhibited by Wilson at the Society of Artists in 1765 (157), entitled A Summer Storm with the Story of the Two Lovers from Thompson (Celadon and Amelia). Its original owner is cited as William Lock of Norbury, the artist's travelling companion from Venice to Rome 15 years previously. Solkin has described the subject as a modern, English, Christian equivalent to the 'Destruction of the Children of Niobe' (see P90 and other versions), noting that such a moral theme was well suited to a landscape painter of Wilson's Grand Style pretensions. The design appropriately recalls storm scenes by Gaspard Dughet and mountain views by Salvator Rosa, both of whom were admired by Thomson.

Bibliography

Fagan 1885, p. 26 cat. LVII, 7th State; WGC, p. 165 under pl. 24b; Clayton 1997, pp. 190, 193, 205; Solkin 1982, pp. 220-21 (entry on one of several impressions at the British Museum); S. Mitchell, 'James Thomson's Picture Collection and British History Painting', Journal of the History of Collections, vol. 23, no. 1 (2011), pp. 127-28; Wilson and Europe 2014, p. 284 (entry on E18, an impression at YCBA)

More Information

WGC notes that a line engraving of the composition, published in France by J.J. Avril (1771-1835) and derived from the Woollett engraving, in earlier impressions has the name of Wilson as painter but substitutes that of Vernet in later impressions.

Condition/Conservation

Laid down on canvas and in bad condition

Celadon and Amelia

Work of Art

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