Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/nicholas-thomas-dall-131" aria-label="More by Nicholas Thomas Dall" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Nicholas Thomas Dall</a>
River Scene with Ruins
Bequeathed by H.S. Ashbee 1900
adults
architecture
building
building - non-specific
landscape
man
people
river
rocky
ruins
townscapes / man-made features
water: inland
woman
wooded
painting oil paint canvas
River Scene with Ruins
support: 863 × 1268 mm
Bequeathed by H.S. Ashbee 1900
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/dall-river-scene-with-ruins-n01779" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01779</span></a> <b>River Scene with Ruins</b> <i>c.</i> 1756–65
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<p>Oil on canvas 857×1254 (33⅔×49 3/8)
<br/>Bequeathed by Henry S. Ashbee 1900
<br/>PROVENANCE ...; H. S. Ashbee by 1900</p>
<p>LITERATURE Grant 1958, II, pp. 161–2
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<br/>Dall, who is known to have been in England by 1756, seems to have concentrated at first on decorative Italianate <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 this nature. He exhibited such subjects only, in various sizes, at the SA until 1765, after which his output began to consist largely of topographical views of country houses and British scenery.
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<br/>The broad and summary manner and strongly but unsubtly expressed planes of recession into a distance devoid of any arresting focal features reflect his lifelong work as a scenery painter. His ‘fat pigment’ technique had a parallel in Richard Wilson who, like Dall, worked for many years in Italy. It is therefore not surprising that the picture entered the collection as a Wilson and was until recently catalogued as a work of the Wilson School, although Grant correctly attributed it to Dall on grounds of style as early as 1926.
<br/>During the restoration of 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/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> in 1969 the initials ‘NT’ were recorded on the back of the relining <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/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a>; they appear to have been executed in a distinctive cursive script which matches the known signatures of the artist. It is probable that this represented a fragment of Dall's signature copied or traced from the back of the original canvas.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, <i>The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture building building - non-specific landscape man people river rocky ruins townscapes / man-made features water: inland woman wooded