Richard Wilson, 1713/4–1782, British, active in Italy (1750–56)
Title:
Rome from the Villa Madama
Date:
1753
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
37 9/16 x 52 1/4 inches (95.4 x 132.7 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.82
Gallery Label:
The Welsh painter Richard Wilson traveled to Italy in 1751 and over the course of the next five years became one of the leading landscape painters in Rome. This is one of two views of Rome commissioned from Wilson by William Legge, second Earl of Dartmouth, during his Grand Tour in 1752–53. The city is seen from the slopes of Monte Mario, to the northwest, traditionally the first view of the city seen by pilgrims arriving from the north. To the right, in shadow, is the loggia of the Villa Madama, built by Pope Clement VII from designs by Raphael. The influence of the seventeenth-century master of landscape Claude Lorrain is much in evidence in the eloquent massing of forms and the subtle movement from areas of rich shadow into a luminous distance. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
