The Murder
Richard Wilson (Penegoes 1714 - Mold 1782)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1752
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
640 x 740 mm
Place of origin
Italy
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 267105
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, The Murder by Richard Wilson, RA (Penegoes 1714 – Mold 1782), circa 1752 (undated). A mountainous landscape with a castle on a rock, a bridge and lightning storm beyond. In the foreground a bandit is about to strike a woman draped in a blue shawl. She kneels before him, her hands clasped and outstretched. Beside her lies the body of a murdered man. The bandit is being restrained by another figure. See Richard Wilson Online, no. P50A. Wilson draws on a subject matter and style popularized by the landscape painter Salvator Rosa (1615-73). The painting is intended to evoke the anxieties of Grand Tour travel, the threat of robbery (and worse) being ever-present when on the road. Related paintings are in the collection of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff (NMW A 69) and in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool (LL3549). A related drawing is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (WA1855.135).
Provenance
Christie's 24 February 1798 (lot 106, as A Landscape with a Storm), bought by Benjamin Booth (1732-1807); listed in Booth's manuscript list as no. 22, 'Storm of lightning. Round castle on a Rock, a Cataract - a Man lying murdered - a woman by his Side begging her Life of the Assassin'; thence by descent to Captain Richard Ford; his sale, Christie's 19 June 1929 (lot 14), bought by Percy Moore Turner (1905-52); Christie's 28 March 1947 (lot 118), bought by Brinsley Ford (1908-99) and thence by descent to Augustine Ford. Accepted under the Cultural Gifts Scheme by HM Government from Augustine Ford and allocated to the National Trust for Osterley, 2023.
Makers and roles
Richard Wilson (Penegoes 1714 - Mold 1782), artist
References
Ford 1951: Brinsley Ford, The Drawings of Richard Wilson, London 1951, pp. 162-63, fig. 24 Ford 1998: Brinsley Ford, 'Benjamin Booth (1732-1807)', The Ford Collection - I, Walpole Society, vol, 60, pp. 5-21, p. 17 (BB29) Garnett 2015: Oliver Garnett, At Home with Art Treasures from the Ford Collection at Basildon Park, National Trust, 2015, p. 38