Richard Wilson, 1713/4–1782, British, active in Italy (1750–56)
Title:
Italian Landscape (Morning)
Date:
between 1760 and 1765
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
27 5/8 x 37 1/4 inches (70.2 x 94.6 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.690
Gallery Label:
This composition has been known by several titles including The Temple of Venus at Baiae. Although that identification has been challenged, it is partly correct. The painting does show the ancient ruins at Baiae, but they were actually part of a bath complex rather than a temple to Venus. A surviving drawing of the ruins made by Richard Wilson in Italy in the early 1750s shows the building from the other side and reveals how Wilson made radical adjustments to its coastal setting to achieve an ideal composition. The effect was to produce a more generalized view of the Italian landscape evocative of a lost golden age rather than a topographical view of a particular set of ruins. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
