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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/richard-wilson-606" aria-label="More by Richard Wilson" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Richard Wilson</a>
Distant Maecenas Villa Tivoli
Presented by Sir George Beaumont Bt 1823
adults
architecture
cities, towns, villages (non-UK)
classical
countries and continents
decadence
decay
domestic
drawing water
emotions, concepts and ideas
fine arts and music
historical: imagined views
history
Italy
landscape
objects
palace
people
periods and styles
places
residential
residential
river
rocky
ruins
sculpture, classical
social comment
society
Tivoli, Maecenas’ Villa
Tivoli, Santuario di Ercole Vincitore
universal concepts
water: inland
woman
wooded
work and occupations
<p>This is the Villa of Maecenas in Tivoli, near Rome. Maecenas had been one of the greatest Roman patrons of the arts. This made him a subject of great interest to eighteenth-century art collectors.But he was also perceived as the personification of decadent luxury. The ruins of his villa therefore embodied both a high point of classical civilisation and the cause of its collapse. So this poetic landscape held a moral lesson for the contemporary viewer.</p><p><em>Gallery label, May 2007</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
11 July 2005 – 6 November 2007
2007-11-06
11 July 2005
2005-07-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-07-11
Grand Manner
Collection based display
12 November 2007 – 17 October 2010
2010-10-17
12 November 2007 – 17 October 2010
2010-10-17
2007-11-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-11-12
Grand Manner
Collection based display
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2010-12-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-12-02
Gallery 9
Collection based display
6 March 2014 – 29 October 2014
2014-10-29
6 March 2014 – 1 June 2014
2014-06-01
2014-03-06
Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, USA)
http://ycba.yale.edu/index.asp
5 July 2014 – 29 October 2014
2014-10-29
2014-07-05
Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales (Cardiff, UK)
2014-03-06
Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Art
Loan-out
Distant View of Maecenas’ Villa, Tivoli
support: 1219 × 1702 mm
frame: 1550 × 2045 × 130 mm
Presented by Sir George Beaumont Bt 1823
<p>This picture, which is one of several similar versions of the subject by Wilson, depicts a view of the ruins of the villa of Maecenas, Tivoli, from the gorge of the Anio. At the centre, at the brow of the hill, is the so-called <i>Villa di Mecenate</i> or <i>Tempio di Ercole Vincitore</i>. To the right, lower down the slope is the small rounded Temple of the Dea Tussis, dedicated to the Roman god of coughing. 

</p><p>Richard Wilson visited Italy between 1750 and 1756 or 1757. According to a memorandum made by the original owner of another version of this picture (formerly in the collection of Sir Brinsley Ford collection), the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> was based upon a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> made by Wilson at Tivoli in April 1754, in the presence of the tenth Earl of Pembroke (1734-94), the fourth Earl of Essex (1732-99), Viscount Bolingbroke (1734-87) and the eighth Earl of Thanet (1733-86). The memorandum, apparently based upon Wilson's own account, stated that the company had 'dined and spent the Day together on the Spot under a Large Tree' (quoted in Constable, pp.34-5). Lord Thanet apparently commissioned the present picture, while Lord Pembroke went on to commission several views of Wilton House. 

</p><p>According to Joseph Farington (1747-1821), who became Wilson's pupil in June 1763, the present picture 'was begun in Italy, and finished in England', suggesting that it was completed around 1757-8 (see Kenneth Garlick, Angus Macintyre and Kathryn Cave eds., <i>The Diary of Joseph Farington</i>, 16 vols., New Haven and London 1978-84, vol. 1, p.214). A <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/chalk" title="Glossary definition for 'Chalk'"><span>chalk</span></a> drawing, which relates to the present picture, belongs to Tate (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wilson-villa-of-maecenas-t09285" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T09285</span></a>). A second related drawing, which provides a closer view of the Villa, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is not known whether either of these drawings relates to that mentioned in the memorandum noted above. 

</p><p>Maecenas, the ruins of whose villa feature prominently in the present picture, was among the most celebrated patrons of the arts in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a> Rome, supporting Horace and Virgil among others. His name was also a byword for luxury and indulgence. By the eighteenth century, as David Solkin has observed, Maecenas's villa represented at once the zenith of Roman culture and the seeds of  its decline. As Solkin states: 'the well-read contemporary viewer could read a moral lesson: though we must take heed of the tragic example of Rome, we must also preserve her great cultural heritage' (Solkin, p.192).

</p><p>Wilson's composition in the present picture is based upon the classical <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a> of Gaspard Dughet (1615-75), mediated here possibly by the example of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-89), whose recent <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>paintings</span></a> of the Falls at Tivoli Wilson would have known well. Like Gaspard Dughet and Vernet before him, Wilson has departed from the actual topography of the landscape before him. Indeed, as Solkin notes, the entire foreground and middle-ground have been invented by Wilson, the Villa and the Temple of the Dea Tussis being situated on a much lower slope than they occupy in reality (Solkin, p. 192). 

</p><p>In 1794 Lord Thanet's son sold the picture to Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827), who had himself made a number of accomplished on-the-spot drawings at Tivoli in the spring of 1783. As Beaumont's agent, Joseph Farington, noted at the time, 'the pictures of Wilson are getting into great request at comparatively high prices' (<i>The Diary of Joseph Farington</i>, vol.1, p.214). 

</p><p>In 1806 Beaumont lent <i>Distant View of Maecenas' Villa, Tivoli</i><b><i> </i></b>to the British Institution so that young artists could copy it (<i>The Diary of Joseph Farington</i>, vol.8, p.2834). Two years later, he removed it to Coleorton Hall, his country seat in Leicestershire There Beaumont installed a large boulder, similar to the one in the foreground of the present picture. 'Just as he had earlier erected a cenotaph to Reynolds's memory', it has been stated, 'this was Beaumont's way of commemorating Wilson, another important influence on his art and ideas' (National Gallery, p.60). In 1828, Beaumont presented the picture, together with fifteen others from his collection, to the newly founded National Gallery. It was transferred to the Tate Gallery in 1955.

</p><p><b>Further Reading:<br/></b><b><br/></b>W.G.Constable, <i>Richard Wilson</i>, London 1953, pp. 34-5, pp. 225-6<br/>David H. Solkin, <i>Richard Wilson. The Landscape of Reaction</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery 1982, p.192<br/><i>'Noble and Patriotic'. The Beaumont Gift 1828</i>, National Gallery, London 1988, pp.60-61, reproduced in colour

</p><p>Martin Postle<br/>June 2001<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>This is the Villa of Maecenas in Tivoli, near Rome. Maecenas had been one of the greatest Roman patrons of the arts. This made him a subject of great interest to eighteenth-century art collectors.But he was also perceived as the personification of decadent luxury. The ruins of his villa therefore embodied both a high point of classical civilisation and the cause of its collapse. So this poetic landscape held a moral lesson for the contemporary viewer.</p>

Display caption
2007-05-03T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
adults architecture cities, towns, villages (non-UK) classical countries and continents decadence decay domestic drawing water emotions, concepts and ideas fine arts and music historical: imagined views history Italy landscape objects palace people periods and styles places residential residential river rocky ruins sculpture, classical social comment society Tivoli, Maecenas’ Villa Tivoli, Santuario di Ercole Vincitore universal concepts water: inland woman wooded work and occupations