View of Fonthill Abbey

Robert Gibb, artist

1801–1837

View of Fonthill Abbey, circa 1826

Where object was made: England, United Kingdom

Material/technique: oil; panel

Dimensions:
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 28.8 x 40 cm
Canvas/Support (Height x Width x Depth): 11 5/16 x 15 11/16 in

Credit line: Museum purchase

Accession number: 1954.0335

Not on display

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Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label:
"Empire of Things," 2013, Kate Meyer
This picturesque tableau by painter Robert Gibb depicts a manor both envisioned and built by novelist William Beckford. As a child, Beckford inherited the fortune his father had amassed as the owner of slaveholding sugar plantations in Jamaica. Beckford used these funds to study drawing and music, travel the continent, and assemble an impressive art collection. In 1782 he wrote Vathek, a Gothic novel set in the Middle East that combined popular orientalist themes with supernatural intrigue. In the early 1800s, Beckford collaborated with architect James Wyatt to build an extravagant Gothic Revival manor home and garden complex called Fonthill Abbey at his family estate in England. Beckford lived alone at Fonthill Abbey, rapidly depleting his inherited wealth. Built in haste, the manor’s grandiose tower collapsed just twenty-six years after it was erected. Gibb never saw Fonthill Abbey in person and produced this painting by looking at an engraving of the famous manor.

Archive Label 2003:
Fonthill Abbey was built for William Beckford, Jr., the notorious and wealthy slave owner, between 1796 and 1818. It served as his private estate but was also widely known and frequently portrayed in paintings and engravings. Gibb based this painting on an 1823 engraving of the building.