Richard Wilson, R.A. 1741-1782

Possibly acquired directly from the artist by Captain William Baillie and thence by descent to Colonel Hugh Baillie, by whom sold, Christie's, 15th May 1858, lot 21, bt. Farrer;

Louis Huth, by whom sold, Christie's, 20th May 1905, lot 137, bt. Grego;

Devitt, by whom sold, Christie's, 16th May 1924, lot 174, bt. Leggatt;

Frederick Seymour Clarke and thence by descent

Royal Academy, Exhibition of the Old Masters, 1884, no.33 (lent Huth);

Tate Gallery, 1925, no.18 (lent Clarke)

This Italianate landscape sits at the heart of the modern English landscape painting.  Wilson travelled to Italy in 1750 and spent a number of years working in the manner of various contemporary masters.  Between 1753-54 he studied the works of Claude Lorrain, but by the time he completed the present landscape, circa 1764, Wilson's style had evolved into a sophisticated tension of idealistic and naturalistic elements.  In the present picture, as in many of Wilson's works, we see ancient tomb stones leaning tiredly against their structures, a detail which encapsulates a similar dialectic between idealised classicism and the decline of classical glory. 

Lake Avernus is a lake on the Tyrrenhian coast of Italy, only a mile from Cumae, which is supposed to fill the crater of an extinct volcano.  Mephitic vapours rise from its waters so that no life is found on its banks and no birds fly over it.  It was because of this that Virgil and the ancient poets believed that Lake Avernus was the entrance to the Underworld.  In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas sacrifices to the gods in the shadow of the forest surrounding Lake Avernus and then follows the Delphic Sibyl into the cave and down into the Underworld.  The Temple of Apollo is visible in the present picture, and it has been suggested that the female figure in the foreground is a sibyl.  As Constable has pointed out (op. cit.) this suggestion is unlikely since the figure appears to be buying fish.  This minor detail emphasises a fundamental difference between Wilson and artists such as Claude and Vernet.  Wilson had a knowledge of classical myth, but his desire to undercut the norms of classical narrative and iconography with a detail as mundane as that of buying of fish, in place of a sibyl, emphasises that he was by no means beholden to it. 

The work was latterly in the collection of Colonel Hugh Baillie.  It is possible that the work entered the collection by family descent from Captain William Baillie (1723-92) who is described in an unsigned letter in the Somerset House Gazette (I, 414) as one of Wilson's best friends.  Farington (Diary, 8th May 1801) remarks that Captain Baillie bought a Villa of Maecenas and another picture from Wilson for £27.  The work was also in the important collection of Frederick Seymour Clarke, an influential timber trader in St Petersburg.