Oil Painting, Richard Wilson (style of), 'Landscape with Temple of Clitumnus near Spoleto'

An oil painting showing an Italian landscape with the ruined Roman temple of Clitumnus at left, with peasants tending their cattle in the foreground.

Purchased, 1875

Historical significance: This painting was bought for £12 in 1875 as a work by Richard Wilson's pupil, William Marlow. At that time it was called simply "Landscape". Some time in the late 19th century a professor of orthodontics at Rome University identified it as being a view of the Temple of Clitumnus, near Spoleto (note on Dept. file). In 1894 it was cleaned and a supposed monogram of Richard Wilson discovered lower left; "RW" with the "R" reversed. Soon after this it was displayed in the Museum as "Masterpiece of the Week", an opportunity for one work of art to be elected from a different department of the Museum each week and put on display with an accompanying long label (copy of the label on the Departmental file). However from the 1940s doubts formed as to the authenticity of the painting (details below). It is now accepted as a poor version with variations of a known composition of Wilson's.

Note on Departmental file for 263-1875: "W.G. [William George] Constable [author of Richard Wilson, Routledge and Paul, 1953] (9.viii.39) verbally expresses the opinion that this picture is autograph and datable soon after Wilson's return to England." Constable revised this opinion in W.G. Constable, Richard Wilson, Routledge and Paul, 1953, p.197 "not by Wilson".

Note on Departmental file for 263-1875, regarding viewing of the painting by Mr Brinsley Ford [author of The Drawings of Richard Wilson, London, Faber and Faber, 1951] and Mr Douglas Cooper on 3/6/48. "Mr. Brinsley Ford and Mr. Douglas Cooper had doubts about the authenticity of this picture. If the signature is a rather large assemblage of black marks in the rushes in the bottom left corner it certainly seems not to be Wilson's own."

A letter on the Departmental file dated "June 3" and signed indistinctly is almost certainly from Douglas Cooper addressed to Graham Reynolds and written the same day as Cooper's visit to the V&A with Brinsley Ford in 1948:
"My dear Reynolds, Thank you so much for patience and assistance this morning over the Wilsons in the V&A. The information you asked for on: 263-75 Temple of Clitumnus is, that it is a variant, in my opinion very poor & not authentic, & incidentally very different, on : The Temple of Clitumnus / 17 ½ x 26 ½ / ex coll. John Allnutt / Sale, Christies 20 June 1863 (476) / Capt Richard Ford / Capt. R. ford Sale, Christie's 14 June 1929 (13) / Bt Urquhart / Now coll. Lord Davis, Llandinam / Exh. Tate Gall. 1925 (30) Wilson Exh.
I have a photo should you want to make a comparison." [The photo is on the Dept. File; it is inscribed on the back: "Departmental photo of an oil painting by Wilson purchased at Robinson & Fishers by Captain R. Ford... and possessed (1923) by him. It does not show the carriage which is visible in 263-1875 & differs from that picture in many other details, besides being softer in effect. The size is about the same'].

See Richard Wilson and his Circle, The Tate Gallery, 1949 [Organized by the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham]. Although this exhibition did not include examples from the V&A, it set Wilson's then recognised paintings alongside works by pupils of Wilson, as well as variants and copies of his work - thereby illuminating how influential and also how collectable Wilson's work was in the years after his death. In the 'Introduction' Mary Woodall (Keeper of the Department of Art, city Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham] wrote, "... his pictures were.. much copied by his pupils and by others with less scrupulous motives...". Woodhall commented further, "Within a few years of his death Wilson's work was confused with that of his pupils, so that Farington, when he visited the Booth collection in 1807*, pointed out that one picture was by Hodges; [Farington] also remarked that some of the pictures attributed to Wilson in the exhibition at the British Institution in 1814 were not by the master." Woodhall also noted however that "... [Wilson] himself often made uninspired replicas of his original designs", highlighting the difficulty in attributing works by Wilson.

[*Benjamin Booth (1732-1807), was a great admirer of Wilson's work and bought many of his pictures. Joseph Farington, R.A. (1747-1821) was a pupil of Richard Wilson, whose studio he entered in 1763.]

263-1875