Richard Wilson (1714–82) was born at Penegoes near Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, Wales, but while still a child, his father, the Rev. John Wilson, went to live at Mold, Flintshire, and there the lad was brought up. Talent of some sort as an artist he early evinced and at fifteen he was sent to London to study portrait painting, a profession at which he worked steadily for twenty-one years, and by which he apparently made a fair income though his portraits never rose much above mediocrity.[606] At thirty-six he went to Italy for further study. During his six years there he devoted himself exclusively to landscape. He remained in Venice a year; with William Lock he made a slow tour from Venice to Rome; with Lord Dartmouth he went to Naples; from Rome as his headquarters he made many excursions into the surrounding regions; and throughout all these travels he was tireless in the production of studies, sketches, pictures. Through the generous praise of recognized authorities such as Zucarelli, Mengs, and Vernet, a report of his surprising achievements reached England, and when he returned to London in 1755 it was to find his reputation practically established. His solemn style did not, however, at once commend itself to the artists of his time. Wright says that his return excited “some interest and much criticism in the coteries of art,” and that certain artists “who then constituted themselves, what they called _A Committee of Taste_, and led the understanding of the public in art” sat in judgment on Wilson’s work and resolved “That the manner of Mr. Wilson was not suited to the English, and that if he hoped for patronage he must change it for the lighter style of Zucarelli.” When this committee waited on Wilson it was met with cool contempt,[607] and he painted on in his own fashion. But the committee’s estimate of patronage was apparently correct, for during the lifetime of the artist, in spite of the fact that during a period of twenty-five years he assiduously painted landscapes, he did not achieve an even moderately comfortable livelihood. His life was one of sordid financial shifts and of growing bitterness of spirit, until, in 1780, through a small inheritance, he was enabled to retire to a little patrimony in Wales, where, broken and enfeebled, he spent the two years before his death.