Cicero conversing with a female Figure in a wooded Lake Landscape

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Cicero conversing with a female Figure in a wooded Lake Landscape
Cicero conversing with a female Figure in a wooded Lake Landscape
Cicero conversing with a female Figure in a wooded Lake Landscape
Private Collection / Image courtesy of Richard Feigen
title=Credit line
Artist
Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
Title
Cicero conversing with a female Figure in a wooded Lake Landscape
Date
Undated
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Metric: 30 x 47.7 cm
Imperial: 11 3/4 x 18 3/4in.
Collection
Private Collection, New York
Wilson Online Reference
P162D
Exhibited
BI 1814 (130/133 - Cicero at his Villa); BI 1824 (170); Leeds 1868 (1159); Guildhall, London, A Selection of Works by French and English Painters of the eighteenth Century, 1902 (60 - Cicero's Villa, lent by Charles Butler); New York 2010 (13)
Provenance
John Hawkins, Bignor Park, Sussex; his son, C.H.T. Hawkins, London; Christie's 11 May 1896 (29), bt C. Butler (38 gns); Charles Butler; Christie's 26 May 1911 (157), bt Sabin (52 gns); V. Wethered; Miss A. Wethered, London; Christie's 4 December 1953 (107), bt Drake; M.T. Nicolle; Christie's 21 November 1980 (59) bt in; Christie's 26 June 1981 (70); private collection, New York
Signature/inscription
Unsigned; no inscription
Related Prints
E45 William Woollett, Cicero at his Villa, The British Museum and other impressions
Related Paintings
P156 Near Rome, Private Collection, England
P162 Cicero with his Friend Atticus and Brother Quintus at his Villa at Arpinum, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford and other versions
Critical commentary
David Solkin has remarked that the composition is closely related to P156 Near Rome, Private Collection, England. In composition and theme, however, it appears to be a later variant of P162 Cicero with his Friend Atticus and Brother Quintus at his Villa at Arpinum, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford and other versions. A version was exhibited at the R.A. in 1770 and an engraving after it by William Woollett was published in 1778 (E45). The present painting, with its broad, summary brushwork, typical of Wilson's style in the 1770s, may have been executed about the same time and as an indirect result of its popularity. Cicero's companions in the earlier work, Atticus and Quintus, have here been replaced by an apparently female figure, perhaps intended as his wife, Terentia, or his beloved daughter, Tullia, who died in childbirth.
Bibliography
WGC p. 169, pls 27a & 27b (versions 2 & 5); Feigen 2010, unpaginated