About this artwork

This oil sketch depicts Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, to the east of Rome. A portrait and landscape painter, Wallis travelled to Italy in 1788/9, working in Naples and Rome. He was associated with an international community of artists and spent time in Spain and Germany. He also worked for the Scottish art dealer William Buchanan, acquiring Velázquez’s celebrated Rokeby Venus (National Gallery, London). Wallis’s Italian oil sketches were only rediscovered in the 1990s and show him to have been an important figure in the development of painting directly from nature.

Published July 2022

  • artist:
  • title:
    Villa Adriana
  • date created:
    1780 - 1790
  • materials:
    Oil on paper
  • measurements:
    34.00 x 51.50 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased 1998
  • accession number:
    NG 2693
  • gallery:
  • subject:
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George Augustus Wallis

George Augustus Wallis