A View in Windsor Great Park c.1783-5
Oil on canvas | 153.1 x 215.5 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 406917
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West’s arrival in England from Italy in 1763 occurred at a time when artists were seeking to create a distinguished national school of history painting. George III was eager to support such a goal and was also a keen supporter of the proposal to found a national academy for the teaching and display of arts: his patronage of West and the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768 were closely intertwined. At the King’s instruction, ‘The Departure of Regulus’ (OM 1152, 405614) was shown at the first Royal Academy exhibition in 1769; he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as President of the Royal Academy in 1792. West painted around sixty pictures for George III between 1768 and 1801. From 1772 he was described in Royal Academy catalogues as ‘Historical Painter to the King’ and from 1780 he received an annual stipend from the King of £100. In the 1780s he gave drawing lessons to the Princesses and in 1791 he succeeded Richard Dalton as Surveyor of the King’s Pictures. This is an unusual subject for West and was probably the painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1785. Thereafter it was believed to have stayed in the artist's possession. Beside a large dying tree, on the left, a peasant family greet the father before their shack; a sow suckles her young, left, while cows and a bull drink standing in a pond, on the right; in the centre is seen a hunt chasing a stag with Windsor Castle visible beyond.
Provenance
Purchased by King Edward VII in 1904 from Colonel Tatham
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Medium and techniques
Oil on canvas
Measurements
153.1 x 215.5 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)
180.9 x 242.2 x 12.2 cm (frame, external)
Category
Object type(s)
Other number(s)
Alternative title(s)
Landscape in Windsor Great Park