An Italian landscape with figures on a path and a town beyond

Details

Richard Wilson, R.A. (1714-1782)
An Italian landscape with figures on a path and a town beyond
pencil, chalk and stump heightened with white, on pink prepared paper, within the artist's black-line border
6 7/8 x 8 3/8 in. (17.4 x 21.3 cm.)

Provenance

Anonymous sale [The Earl of Arran]; Sotheby's, London, 10 March 1988, lot 46.
with Agnew's, London.

Literature

G. Bauer, Le Siècle d'Or de l'Aquarelle Anglaise, Anthèse, 1998, p. 24, pl. 9, illustrated in colour.
W. Hauptman, L'Âge d'Or de l'Aquarelle Anglaise 1770-1900, Lausanne, 1999, p. 39, no. 1, illustrated in colour.

Exhibited

London, Agnew's, 116th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings, 1989, no. 94, illustrated.
Lausanne, Fondation de l'Hermitage, L'Âge d'Or de l'Aquarelle Anglaise 1770-1900, 22 January - 24 May 1999, no. 1.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium

Lot Essay

This drawing probably dates to the end of Wilson's stay in Italy and can be compared stylistically to capriccio vignettes of 1754-6 and to a view on the Tiber of 1757, also on pink prepared paper, D.H. Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction, London, 1982, p. 176. The view is probably loosely based on an Italian landscape rather than being topographically accurate.

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