Attributed to RICHARD WILSON (1714-1782) Cattle with drover, figures and ruin in a landscape, oil on canvas, the stretcher indistinctly inscribed in pencil, and with inventory number / 561129, 13.5 inches x 16.5 inches, unframed.
Richard Wilson was a Welsh landscape painter, born in Penegoes, Montgomeryshire, and one of the founder members of the Royal Academy in 1768. From 1750 to 1757 he was in Italy and adopted landscape on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in England, he was the first major British painter to primarily concentrate on landscape, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable and Turner.
At the Sale of the contents of Rug, Merionethshire, by auction in 1859, Re The Late Sir Robert Williames Vaughan, Bart., deceased, by order of the executors, conducted by Mr William Dew of Bangor, five Wilson’s were offered for sale, to which the footnote in the catalogue reads “were painted by him for the family while residing in the neighbourhood.” Possessing all the brilliancy of colour-transparency of atmosphere and natural tone, for which this favourite Artist was so celebrated. Nannau Schedule of Contents 1958 No.126, where it is described as; “Cows overlooking the Vale of Clwyd (Artist unknown)”.
Scan and Information Courtesy of Tamlyns.
