Richard Wilson, R.A.

To be included in the complete online catalogue of the paintings of Richard Wilson by Paul Spencer-Longhurst.

The work has a recent relining. The paint surface is clean, barring slight discoloration to parts of the sky. Traces of good quality impasto remain in the foliage at upper right. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals an uneven varnish, as well as filled in craqulure in the sky and at the lower centre, and small scattered retouchings largely confined to the foliage. The work is offered in a carved gilt frame.
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To be included in the complete online catalogue of the paintings of Richard Wilson by Paul Spencer-Longhurst.

We are grateful to Paul Spencer-Longhurst for endorsing the attribution to Richard Wilson, following an inspection of the original. The present work is one of a number of autograph variants of this composition, of which the best known is in the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.¹ One of Wilson's most popular subjects, numerous small variations in composition, particularly in the placement of the foreground figures, exist between the different variants. The composition of the present work relates most closely to another in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff.² Previously thought by Constable to represent a generic view of Tivoli, in 2014 Martin Postle identified the view as being the upper Aniene Valley, looking east towards the Prenesti mountains and the outcrops of Mentorella and Guadagnolo. This is an area associated historically with a chain of Benedictine monasteries, thus providing the context for the presence of monks on the rocky promontory overlooking the valley.³

1. See D.H. Solkin, Richard Wilson, 1982, p. 21, reproduced fig. 103.

2. P. Spencer-Longhurst, Richard Wilson Online, Paul Mellon Centre, no. P144A.

3. See M. Postle & R. Simon (eds), Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting, New Haven and London 2014, p. 97.