John Wootton

Commissioned from the artist by George, Lord Lyttelton (1709-93);
by descent

Birmingham, City Art Gallery, 1926, no. 88 (106)

Catalogue of Pictures at Hagley Hall, 1900, no. 106
G.E. Kendall, 'Notes of the Life of John Wootton with a List of Engravings After his Pictures,' Walpole Society, 1933, XXI, p. 36;
A. Meyer, John Wootton (1682-1764) Landscapes and Sporting Art in Early Georgian England, 1984, p. 24, fig. 10

STRUCTURE The canvas has been lined. PAINT SURFACE The painting appears to be in very good condition. ULTRAVIOLET Ultraviolet light reveals one extremely minor fleck of retouching to the base of the tree in the centre of the painting. FRAME Held in a fine, gilded British Rococo frame.
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Commissioned in 1740 the scenery of this painting illustrates precisely lines in the 'Ecologue on Jealousy,' the third part of Lyttelton's poem, The Progress of Love;

Begin my Muse, and Damon's woes rehearse,
In wildest numbers and disordered verse.
On a romantic mountain's airy head
(While browzing goats at ease around him fed)
Anxious he lay, with jealous cares oppress'd;
Distrust and anger lab'ring in his breast –
The vale beneath a pleasing prospect yields,
Of Verdant meads and cultivated fields;
Through these a river rolls its winding flood,
Adorn'd with various tufts of rising wood;
Here hald conceal'd in tree a cottage stands,
A castle there the op'ning plain commands,
Beyond, a town with glitt'ring spires is crowned,
The distant hills the wide horizon bound.[1]

The theme of jealousy and distrust within the poem belies the initial perception of this painting as a serene and idyllic landscape. Wootton often used a repertoire of poetic themes for his classical landscapes influenced by fellow acquaintences such as Prior, Pope, Gay and Swift. Since these artists shared patrons such as Lord Lyttleton it is no surprise to find a cohesion in their creative style.

Dated 1749 this painting also illustrates Wootton's increasing interest in imaginative landscape scenes following his trip Rome in the 1720s under the patronage of the 3rd Duke of Beaufort. Comparison of this painting with the Classical Landscape (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) demonstrates Wootton's use of a looser and arguably more poetic and romantic style of brushwork for such scenes than is evident in his other genres (see previous lot). Herrmann suggests that this style possibly demonstrates the influence of Francesco Zuccarelli whose paintings were well known in England (where he had worked from 1752-1762 and again 1765-1771).[2]

Wootton was born near Hagley Hall at Snitterfield, Warwickshire and it has been suggested that the repertoire of landscape features found in this painting may have been 'inspired by the scarps of the Cotswolds and the peaks of the Malverns of his childhood and youth, and by the distant heights that would loom up the marches of Wales and beyond.'[3] Indeed the distant hills in this scene bare a striking resemblance to the form of the Malvern Hills at the north end, as they reach towards Stourbridge and the location of Hagley Hall.

[1] Catalogue of the Pictures, Statues, and Busts in the Best Apartments in Hagley Hall, 1811, p. 22.
[2] L. Herrmann, British Landscape Paintings of the 18^th Century, 1973, p. 18.