drawing
- Museum number
- 1910,1013.18
- Description
-
San Stefano Rotondo, Claudian Aqueduct; part of the aqueduct seen in the mid-distance beyond fields, a town at r, a round building at left, in the left foreground two figures standing before a tree, broken columns and capitals to left, part of a ruined wall with two figures at right and a statue of a man at the extreme r
Black chalk and stump, on blue-green paper
- Production date
- 1752-1756 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 268 millimetres
-
Width: 408 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This drawing is a perfect example of Wilson adapting the style of Claude Lorrain to his own close observation of a specific place (for more on Wilson’s influences see the curator’s comment for 1881,0212.8). It is, however, unusual as it still retains its original mount. Identical to those of the Dartmouth drawings (see 1859,0709.112), the mount is inscribed with topographical details in a hand identified as that of Thomas Jenkins, Wilson’s friend and dealer in Rome. This inscription describes the scene as ‘Snt. Stephano Rotondo, and the Claudian Acqueduct. / with Snt. John Laterans’; it is the view looking back towards Rome from the Villa Mattei, now known as the Villa Celimontana, situated in the hills to the South-East of the city. In 1951 Brinsley Ford attributed the present drawing to Wilson’s principal pupil in Rome, John Plimmer (Ford, 1951, p. 40). However, a second version of the drawing exists dated ‘1756’ and marked with Plimmer’s monogram (see 1928,1016.13). Given the exceptional quality of the present drawing, it is most probably that this is Wilson’s original and that Plimmer’s is a student exercise.
‘Richard Wilson Online’ reference number: D339
Further reading:
B. Ford, The Drawings of Richard Wilson, Faber & Faber, London, 1951.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1936 BM 'Canaletto to Constable', no no.
2014 Mar-Jun, New Haven, YCBA, Richard Wilson
2014 July - Oct, Cardiff, NM of Wales, Richard Wilson
- Acquisition date
- 1910
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1910,1013.18
