About this lot
Description
* William Williams of Norwich (British, 1727-1797)
Amelia struck by lightning
signed and dated ‘WWilliams 1763’ (lower centre)
oil on canvas, in a carved and giltwood Rococo style frame
62 x 74.5cm
Provenance:
New York, 4th June 1980, as 'Couple in a Forest in a Storm (1763, oil on canvas, 61 × 73.5 cm)', for $2,000;
The Asbjorn Lunde Foundation, Inc.
Footnote:
This landscape illustrates a passage from Summer in James Thomson’s cycle of poems The Seasons, first published in 1730. The latter years of the eighteenth century saw the popularity of Thomson’s series soar. Publishers and booksellers reacting to this created and sold the poems in numerous forms, from duodecimo to folio. Often the latest editions included essays on Thomson’s work and artists were commissioned to create illustrations and frontispieces. This burgeoning market for Thomson’s work and the proliferation of associated visual material meant that The Seasons became an easily recognisable classic - one that was identified by the British public through the high points of its poetic narrative.
The scene shown by Williams in the present lot, set in Caernarvonshire, Wales, describes a popular passage from Summer involving the two lovers Amelia and Celadon. The moment was inspired by an account given by Alexander Pope in 1718. Pope tells of two young lovers, John Hewet and Sarah Drew, who were caught in a thunderstorm and when the pair attempted to take shelter, Sarah was killed by a lightning strike. In Thomson’s Summer, Amelia shares the same fate.
Williams, originally from Norfolk, spent his formative years working as a scenery painter for the theatre. It is likely that this background influenced his predilection for dramatic subject matter and powerful atmospheric effects. In the present scene, Williams frames the moment of action as if it were taking place on stage. He employs the eighteenth-century language of the sublime to skilfully describe the high drama of this popular story in such evocative terms.
The same subject, but of different composition, was sold at Christie’s on 18th November 1966, lot 21 (see Ellis Waterhouse, The Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters, 1981, p. 413 - where it is suggested that composition was exhibited at the RA in 1778, no. 346). A smaller version of that painting dated 1784, titled Thunderstorm with the Death of Amelia, is in Tate Britain.
All proceeds from the sale of this and another eleven paintings (lots 57-68) will benefit the activities of the Asbjorn Lunde Foundation, Inc., which continues its founder’s support of research, publishing, presentation, and practice in museums and music. Throughout his long life, Mr. Lunde supported more than forty museums in his native New York, across the United States, and in Europe with loans, gifts, and funding. Mr. Lunde was a proud New Yorker with roots in Norway. He was keenly interested in nineteenth-century Scandinavian and Swiss landscape painting, Old master painting, and Asian decorative arts.
Condition report:
Framed 81.5 x 94.5cm
The painting is executed in oil on a canvas support which has been lined. The canvas has good tension and the picture is in plane. The paint layer is stable overall. Scattered areas of wear and some drying cracks have been retouched, the overpaint is well matched to the original. The varnish is thick, glossy and slightly yellowed but acceptable. There is a light layer of dust across the surface.
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