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The partial ruins of a stone lion on a tall pedestal stands at the edge of a body of water in a verdant green landscape in this horizontal painting. The lion statue is broken so only the back half of the body and one front paw remain. The animal’s tail winds through the back legs, and the front paw rests on a ball. The pedestal is chipped and cracked, and some of the surface on the front is worn away to show brick underneath. A pale-skinned man lies on the ground with one elbow propped on the base of the pedestal. His chest is bare. A white cloth drapes over his head, hiding much of his face, and a pale yellow cloth lies across his hips. He holds in other hand to his chest and looks down at a book propped on a rock. A wooden cross, about the length of the man’s torso, also rests against the rock. Grasses and plants cover the ground around the man. A bank of deeply shaded trees rises up the left side of the canvas. Another person sits and one more stands at the foot of the trees, both wearing tan-colored robes. The seated person has short hair and bare feet. He looks down on the open pages of a book in his lap. The standing man has a long white beard, a hooded robe, and a walking stick. The waterline curves in a sharp C to our right, from behind the lion statue to near the trees. On the far side is a low arched entrance, perhaps to a grotto. The heavy branches of a willow tree bow over the water’s surface and leafy vines hang down a rocky cliff nearby. The water winds into the distance to our right, back toward a line of trees and bushes. In the deep distance, smoke wafts out the top of a mountain, presumably a volcano. White puffy clouds float against a pale blue sky above.

Richard Wilson

Solitude, c. 1762/1770

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 142.1 x 210.1 cm (55 15/16 x 82 11/16 in.)

framed: 163.8 x 231.6 x 7.6 cm (64 1/2 x 91 3/16 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Paul Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1983.1.45

Artists / Makers

Richard Wilson (painter) British, 1713/1714 - 1782

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Overview

Richard Wilson began as a portraitist, although he also produced a few topographical paintings early in his career. During his stay in Italy in the 1750s he turned his attention exclusively to depictions of arcadian landscape and developed a personal style that freed him from the realistic constraints of his earlier works. Indeed, Italy's golden Mediterranean light and the ancient ruins that evoked the glory of its classical past affected Wilson long after his return to London in 1756. Like his contemporary Reynolds, Wilson sought to elevate the status of his genre of painting through the systematic application of classical standards.

In this landscape the artist draws on his memories of the Italian countryside as well as on his imagination to create a richly detailed panorama, suffused with a quiet and evocative mood. On a massive pedestal stands the ruin of a statue of a lion with a globe under its paw, symbolizing the inevitability of death and decay. The pagan hermit reading at the base of the statue and the two Christian monks to the left, their church highlighted in a clearing in the woods, seem to share a common hope of discovering answers to the mysteries of life.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/british-paintings-16th-19th-centuries.pdf

Provenance

Perhaps (Maddox Street Gallery, London), in 1828. Mr. Gray, Ilkley, Yorkshire, after whose death it was bought 1839 by (John Chaplin, London);[1] probably purchased ca. 1839 by Andrew Fountaine [1808-1873], Narford Hall, King's Lynn, Norfolk;[2] by descent to Andrew Fountaine [b. 1918]; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 23 June 1972, no. 57); purchased by (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London) for Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] Descriptions of the work(s) owned by the Maddox Street Gallery and Mr. Gray quoted in W.G. Constable, Richard Wilson, London, 1953: 169, could apply equally well to the Washington picture and to an almost identical version in the M.D.G. Robinson collection (Robinson sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 16 April 1982, no. 60, bought in; formerly in the Col. M.H. Grant collection).

[2] Sir Geoffrey Agnew to Paul Mellon, 2 May 1972, in NGA curatorial files. It was certainly in Fountaine's possession by 1854, when it was noted in G. F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain, 4 vols., London, 1854: 3:431.

Associated Names

Chaplin, John
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Fountaine, Algernon Charles
Fountaine, Andrew
Fountaine, Andrew
Fountaine, Charles Andrew, Vice Admiral
Fountaine, Mary
Gray, Mr.
Maddox Street Gallery
Mellon, Paul

Exhibition History

1986: Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is plain woven; it has been lined. The ground is light gray; it is smoothly applied and masks the weave of the canvas. The painting is executed smoothly and opaquely, with thin brown and green glazes in the details of the landscape, thick textured paint in the trees, and low impasto in the highlights; the middle ground of the landscape on the right has been left unfinished, with the ground clearly visible in parts; the crude dark brown glazes in the center and right foreground, which help to establish the solid character of the forms, are original. The painting was cleaned, lined, and revarnished in London in 1973. It is in good condition. Linear cracks throughout the paint have been retouched; otherwise loss and damage are minimal. The thin natural resin varnish has not discolored.

Bibliography

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 438, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 336-339, color repro. 337.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 145, repro.

2014: Spencer-Longhurst, Paul. Richard Wilson Online. 2014: P115, color repro. [http://www.richardwilsononline.ac.uk]