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Inscription

lower center in reverse monogram: WR. 1762

Provenance

Possibly Walter Spencer-Stanhope [d. 1822], Horsforth and Cannon Hall, Barnsley, Yorkshire. Simon Spencer-Stanhope [b. 1924]. (Banks Hall, Barnsley, sale, Henry Spencer and Sons, 16 September 1965, no. 229, repro.); (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); purchased June 1966 by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1983 to NGA.[1]

Exhibition History

1961
Pictures from North Country Houses, Cannon Hall, Barnsley, 1961, no. 35.
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 left edge has been folded over the nonoriginal stretcher, obscuring approximately 2 cm. of the painted surface. Both vertical edges are extended by the addition of wooden strips approximately 1.5 cm. wide, which are painted to correspond with the adjacent original paint. The ground is off-white, thickly and smoothly applied. The painting is executed thinly and fluidly, blended wet into wet in the foreground and middle ground, leaving the ground visible; the figures are put in over the landscape with thicker paint. The landscape and sky are thickly painted, with low impasto in the highlights. The paint surface is slightly abraded, most notably on the left side of the lake; the thick paint has been slightly flattened. There is scattered retouching in the sky. There are discolored residues of an earlier natural resin varnish in the hills left and right. The overlying synthetic 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: 334-336, color repro. 335.
2014
Spencer-Longhurst, Paul. Richard Wilson Online. 2014: P118, color repro. [http://www.richardwilsononline.ac.uk]

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