Best in Show
Croome Court,Worcestershire by Richard Wilson, 1758 - Croome Court
“At first glance, this looks like a traditional 18th-century landscape painting but it is, in fact, a pure flight of fancy.
It was commissioned by the sixth earl of Coventry and is believed to be the first depiction of a garden designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who was hired to redesign the earl’s parkland in a naturalistic manner and remodel his house in then-fashionable Palladian style.
What’s incredible, however, is that when this was painted, Croome would have been a building site. The river would have been in the process of being dug by hand and those lovely pastures, shrubberies and carriage drives would have been fields and marshland.
The church in the background wouldn’t even have existed. As well as moving the old village out of view of the house, Brown also took down the old medieval church and replaced it with a gothic version.
The artist must have spoken to Brown and the earl about their intentions for Croome before setting to work on this vision of the future. We know there was at least one preliminary drawing, a lovely sketch with a church in the background, which certainly isn’t the church we have now.
It turns out to have been an accurate prediction – the trees have obviously matured and are larger than depicted, and the river was made wider with a more pronounced bend towards the horizon.
The picture was also a brilliant piece of evidence when we recreated that old Chinese bridge just 18 months ago. It had been one of the few things that Brown kept from the existing scene, but it rotted away over the years.
I think the earl wanted the picture to show his friends what Croome would look like when finished and to reassure himself – and particularly his wife – that all the upheaval would be worth it in the end.
His wife was Maria Gunning, a famous London beauty and socialite who hated the countryside in general and Croome in particular. It is said that the king employed a royal guard to allow her to walk around Hyde Park without being harassed, and that people used to pay to see her shoes being mended by a cobbler in Worcester.
Unfortunately, Maria developed the habit of using lead-based make-up which rather ruined her appearance. There’s a lovely letter that describes the earl chasing her around the dinner table in an attempt to make her remove it. But Maria insisted on wearing the fashionable stuff even though it brought her out in sores and boils.
Two bouts of tuberculosis eventually brought about Maria’s untimely end at the unfinished Croome, just two years after this painting was completed.”
Interview by John Holt. Brown at Croome, part of the 300th anniversary celebrations of the birth of Capability Brown, runs until 16 December
Amy Forster-Smith is the house and visitor experience manager at Croome Court, Worcestershire
It was commissioned by the sixth earl of Coventry and is believed to be the first depiction of a garden designed by Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who was hired to redesign the earl’s parkland in a naturalistic manner and remodel his house in then-fashionable Palladian style.
What’s incredible, however, is that when this was painted, Croome would have been a building site. The river would have been in the process of being dug by hand and those lovely pastures, shrubberies and carriage drives would have been fields and marshland.
The church in the background wouldn’t even have existed. As well as moving the old village out of view of the house, Brown also took down the old medieval church and replaced it with a gothic version.
The artist must have spoken to Brown and the earl about their intentions for Croome before setting to work on this vision of the future. We know there was at least one preliminary drawing, a lovely sketch with a church in the background, which certainly isn’t the church we have now.
It turns out to have been an accurate prediction – the trees have obviously matured and are larger than depicted, and the river was made wider with a more pronounced bend towards the horizon.
The picture was also a brilliant piece of evidence when we recreated that old Chinese bridge just 18 months ago. It had been one of the few things that Brown kept from the existing scene, but it rotted away over the years.
I think the earl wanted the picture to show his friends what Croome would look like when finished and to reassure himself – and particularly his wife – that all the upheaval would be worth it in the end.
His wife was Maria Gunning, a famous London beauty and socialite who hated the countryside in general and Croome in particular. It is said that the king employed a royal guard to allow her to walk around Hyde Park without being harassed, and that people used to pay to see her shoes being mended by a cobbler in Worcester.
Unfortunately, Maria developed the habit of using lead-based make-up which rather ruined her appearance. There’s a lovely letter that describes the earl chasing her around the dinner table in an attempt to make her remove it. But Maria insisted on wearing the fashionable stuff even though it brought her out in sores and boils.
Two bouts of tuberculosis eventually brought about Maria’s untimely end at the unfinished Croome, just two years after this painting was completed.”
Interview by John Holt. Brown at Croome, part of the 300th anniversary celebrations of the birth of Capability Brown, runs until 16 December
Amy Forster-Smith is the house and visitor experience manager at Croome Court, Worcestershire