Amgueddfa Cymru owns the largest collection of paintings by Richard Wilson outside London, holding over 20 paintings in its stores and on display to the public.

The Artist

Richard Wilson was born and brought up in Penegoes , Montgomeryshire and moved to London in 1729 to train as a portrait painter under Thomas Wright. Following his apprenticeship in 1735 he began producing portraits of Welsh and English sitters. In 1750 he left London for Rome where he remained until 1757. During this time he developed new skills as a landscape painter in the grand classical style following the examples of Poussin, Claude and Zuccarelli.

On his return to London he hired several apprentices and paying pupils included Thomas Jones and Joseph Farington who both ended up adopting something of Wilson's studio practice.

Over the next fifteen years he produced large numbers of Italian, English and Welsh landscapes repeating the more popular subjects many times over. Gradually the market for this type of painting disappeared and his income dwindled. The Royal Academy, of which he had been a founder member in 1768, eventually appointed him as Librarian with a salary of £50 per annum. Eventually his health deteriorated and he retired to Colomendy near Mold where he died in 1782.

Portrait Painting Technique

Wilson's initial portraits date from 1740-50 and reflect the taste of his day. Subjects are usually shown bust-length in an oval with a suitable background echoing the aspirations of the sitter. Wilson's loose but masterly handling of paint is visible in the costumes of his subjects, showing details of fastenings and other decorative features. Wilson painted skin tones in three stages. The first colouring established the basics of the face using a shade tint for the darker tones and a light tint for the general flesh tone. The second painting, after the first was dry, consisted in heightening of the lights, glazing the darks and adding carmine to the lips and cheeks. The final or third painting allowed final corrections to the glazing.

A particular hallmark of his portraiture is the grey underpainting left exposed to form a mid-tone of the skin. This is easily visible in the portraits of

Richard Owen (NMW A 5005) and the Maid of Honour (NMW A 67).

Landscape Painting Technique

Wilson decided to abandon portraiture in favour of landscape painting whilst in Italy. His landscape paintings were produced by first applying an underdrawing of brown paint, followed by ‘dead-colouring', a task which was given to the studio apprentices. Thin washes of colour were applied at this stage; Prussian blue and grey-brown for the sky, and a mixture of red and blue pigments for the landscape. The colour was applied to a thickness depending on the depth of tone required, allowing the light tone of the ground to show through more towards the horizon. Once the dead-colouring was dry it was oiled out before the second painting.

For the foreground Joseph Farington records that Wilson 'went over it a second time, heightening every part with colour and deepening the shadows, but still, brown, loose and flat, and left in a state for finishing: the half-tints laid in, without highlights.' In the third and final painting of the foreground Wilson altered the tints, adding the necessary sharpness to the different objects, before glazing them with rich warm tints, and finally adding further solid tints over this.

The sky and distant landscape, on the other hand, were worked wet-in wet after the initial dead-colouring, rather than in two separate stages. This allowed Wilson to achieve easier blending of the clouds with the blue of the sky, apparently using ultramarine rather than Prussian blue for this stage of painting. Last of all the horizon was adjusted and the distance softened with grey-brown again as necessary.

Drawing Practice

Drawing was important to Wilson with the first year of his pupils' training being devoted purely to drawing, which he believed gave them a good grounding 'in the principles of light and shade without being dazzled and misled by the flutter of colours.'

The majority of his surviving drawings date from his visit to Italy (1750-7). These are made up of studies taken directly from nature and designs drawn from his imagination. His preferred medium was black chalk and stump on a grey paper. He used these drawings as an inspiration for his oil paintings but rarely translated them directly into paint. He was constantly reworking the original designs and making adjustments as he painted.

In addition his colours were all derived from his visual memory or his imagination as he disapproved of tinted drawings and never used watercolours to make studies from nature.

Wilson's palette according to Paul Sandby from Whitley's Artists and their Friends in England 1700-1799. (Medici Society pub. 1928)

Wilson's Palette:

Both Joseph Farington, who became his pupil in 1763, and the watercolourist Paul Sandby, one of his friends, recorded Wilson's palette. Their accounts differ slightly but together give the range of pigments we would expect to find in his paintings.

Blues: ultramarine, Prussian blue, indigo
Reds: vermilion, light red, red lake
Yellows: yellow ochre, yellow lake, Naples yellow, brown pink
Browns: Roman ochre, burnt siena
Greens: terre verte
White: lead white
Black: ivory or bone black

At a glance:

• 1714: Born in Montgomeryshire
• 1728: Moved to London to take up apprenticeship with Thomas Wright
• 1735: Became Painter in his own right
• 1750: Travelled to Rome to developing his painting in the style of Poussin, Claude and Zuccarelli
• 1757: Returned to London training pupils such as Thomas Jones and Joseph Farington
• 1768: Founder member of The Royal Academy
• 1772: Appointed Librarian of The Royal Academy
• >1782: Died in Mold, Wales

In 1998 two separate but significant discoveries were unearthed by metal detectorists in Monmouthshire - a unique hoard of roman coins from Rogiet and a gold ring from Raglan. Both finds were significant and fine examples of treasure that are now in the collections of Amgueddfa Cymru.

The Treasure Act of 1997

The Treasure Act of 1997 covers certain classes of coins and precious metal objects found in England and Wales and has extended legal protection to single objects of gold and silver and to virtually all coin hoards. The new regulations have provided improved protection for certain categories of newly-found antiquities, and better opportunities for preserving these for the public benefit.

Since the act came into force, staff from Amgueddfa Cymru have handled numerous finds, including the spectacular discoveries of an unique hoard of Roman coins from Rogiet and a massive gold signet ring from Raglan.

One of the finest hoards of roman coins ever found in Wales

In September 1998, thousands of Roman coins from the third century AD were discovered by Colin Roberts at Rogiet, Monmouthshire. This was one of the finest hoards ever recorded from Wales and were declared treasure in December 1998.

The 3,750 coins had been buried, possibly in a wooden box, around AD 295-6 (we believe this to be the date since there were no coins later than this in the box) and span a forty-year period, with twenty-two emperors represented, a sign of the political instability of the times.

Political trouble

Their deposit, and the owner's failure to recover them, probably relate to this military and political instability. At the same time, however, the currency of the Roman empire was going through major change. In AD 294-5, new gold, silver and copper alloy coins were introduced to uniform designs and standards empire-wide.

The hoard is made up of an unusual composition for a British find as the coins found in it were not circulated in great numbers here. The hoard is significant as it contains a number of faulty issues of the 260s, and also because it contains over 750 coins of the two individuals who declared themselves Emperor in Britain, Carausius (287-93) and Allectus (293-96). These are not often found in hoards and contain rare denominations representing a variety of warships.

Also included in the hoard is a particularly fine specimen, perhaps the best in existence, of a classic rarity of the Romano-British coinage series. In around 292, Carausius seems to have wanted official appreciation from the emperors Diocletian and Maximian, issuing coinage in their names as well as his own. He even depicted himself with the others on a single design, with the slogan 'Carausius and his brothers'. The feeling was not shared, and within a year Carausius was gone, murdered by his minister Allectus.

An ornate gold ring from Raglan

The Raglan Ring

In the same year as the Roman coins were unearthed at Rogiet, a massive and ornate gold signet ring was found near Raglan, Monmouthshire, by Ron Treadgold, and was also declared treasure. The ring has a circular bezel engraved with a design of a lion on a bed of flowers, within a single cable border with the legend: to yow feythfoull or feythfoull to yow and initials W A either side of the lion.

The finest example of late medieval gold jewellery to be found in Wales

The shoulders of the ring are decorated with flowers and leaves and is significant for the study of late medieval rings as very close comparisons exist in the engraving on the gold episcopal ring of John Stanbury, Bishop of Hereford (1452-1474), a mid 15th century cross from Winteringham, Lincolnshire and a gold ring from Godstow Priory, Oxfordshire. The Raglan ring is likely to date from the middle or third quarter of the 15th century, and is perhaps the finest example of late medieval gold jewellery ever to be found in Wales.

The ring's owner

The original owner of the seal has yet to be identified, though the finding of the ring near Raglan and initials W A make William Herbert, first Earl of Pembroke (executed after the battle of Banbury during the Wars of the Roses, in 1469) a possibility. He married Anne Devereux, and the initials might stand for William and Anne.

The size of the ring suggests that it was worn by a man, and the inscription may be regarded as a sign of faithfulness to his wife. Herbert was one of two men referred to as the 'chosen and faithful' to the new king, Edward IV, and on Edward's coronation he was ennobled. However, the identification of the ring as that of William Herbert is not proven and other names are possible.

At present, all that we can safely say is that the ring was a mark of rank, and probably belonged to an important officer or visitor to Raglan during the second half of the 15th century.