Chirk Castle from the North
Pieter Tillemans (Antwerp 1684 – Suffolk 1734)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
circa 1720
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1073 x 1522 x 60 mm
Place of origin
Chirk Castle
Collection
Chirk Castle, Wrexham
NT 1171183
Caption
This painting shows an iconic front view of Chirk Castle as seen from the Berwyn hills. The Davies gates are seen in their original postion in front of the castle with formal gardens behind. The surrounding landscape shows the old drovers paths and Offas Dyke prior to the eighteenth-century re-landscaping work. The artist's grounding in the Flemish school is very much in evidence here.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Chirk Castle from the North by Pieter Tillemans (Antwerp 1684 – Suffolk 1734), circa 1720, signed 'Pieter Tillemans f'. The castle viewed from the north showing the white painted wrought-iron gate screen by Robert and John Davies and the formal gardens in front. It sits on the hill on the left, in the middle distance. Clumps of trees to left and right of the castle, descending to a path leaving down to a lake in the foreground. On the bank of the lake in the near foreground is a drover wading in the water holding a stick, some cattle, goats and a horse. In the far distance on the right are some hills; evening (?) sky with wisps of clouds.
Provenance
The surviving payment to Tillemans, “for Cloth or Canvas bought by him and colours, £2.3s.2d., for pencils and brushes 7s.”, dates from 4 November 1720 ; with some of the contents, in 1978, that were acquired along with Chirk Castle from Lt-Col Ririd Myddelton (1902–1988) by the National Land Fund and handed, on loan for 99 years, to the Secretary of State for Wales (In 1981 Chirk was transferred into the ownership of the National Trust); acquired in 1994 by the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, with the aid of a special grant from the Secretary of State for Wales, so that they should remain on indefinite loan to Chirk Castle. Ar fenthyg gan / Lent by Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales to Chirk Castle.
Marks and inscriptions
Pieter Tillemans f (signed)
Makers and roles
Pieter Tillemans (Antwerp 1684 – Suffolk 1734), artist
References
Harris 1979 John Harris, The Artist and the Country House. A History of Country House and Garden View Painting in Britain 1540-1870, London 1979, no. 250