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    Apollo and the Seasons

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    Apollo and the Seasons
    Apollo and the Seasons
    Apollo and the Seasons
    Indianapolis Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Charlotte Jackson Baldwin
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Apollo and the Seasons
    Date
    c.1768
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 121.9 x 170.2 cm
    Imperial: 48 x 67 in.
    Collection
    Indianapolis Museum of Art. To license image, click here.
    Accession Number
    57.46
    Wilson Online Reference
    P164A
    Description
    Apollo is seen sitting to the left playing his lyre on Mount Olympus, raising his right hand towards the Seasons or Horae, four female figures who dance in a circle to right. Two cherubs sit blowing bubbles nearby, in a landscape with an overgrown temple to theright, a river running through the centre, mountains in the background and a square tower on the left bank in the middle ground.
    Provenance
    Christie's London 31 July 1939 (203); with Frank T. Sabin, London; with Leggatt Brothers, 30, St James's Street, London, S.W.1., 1953; Mrs Charlotte Jackson; given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1957
    Subject
    Based loosely on a passage from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. The subject was popular with classical landscape painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Apollo, god of the Sun, plays his lyre while the four Seasons dance to the music.
    Related Drawings
    D146 Father Tiber, The British Museum (1881,0212.44)
    Related Prints
    E24 Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    E24A Earlom and Sayer after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    E24B Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, The British Museum
    E47 Woollett and Pouncy, after Mortimer after Wilson, Apollo and the Seasons, The British Museum
    E47A Woollett and Pouncy after Wilson, Apollo and the Seasons, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    On his return from Italy to England in 1757, Wilson quickly became the preeminent British painter of the classical landscape. Apollo and the Seasons provides an early example of the picturesque landscape tradition in England. In such works, the genres of landscape and history painting overlap in a way that validates an aesthetic response to nature through nostalgic references to classical literature and mythology. The inclusion of a ruined temple bathed in golden light heightens these literary associations.
    Bibliography
    WGC, pp. 93-4, 96, 167, pl. 26b (version 2); Connoisseur, May 1953
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/28

    Work of Art

    Drawings

    • Father Tiber, The British Museum

    Prints

    • Richard Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    • Richard Earlom and Robert Sayer after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • Richard Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and Benjamin Thomas Pouncy, after John Hamilton Mortimer, after Wilson, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and Benjamin Thomas Pouncy after Wilson, Apollo and the Seasons, Royal Academy of Arts, London

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Apollo and the Seasons, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

    Biographies

    • Robert Sayer (1725-1794)

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
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