The Cock Tavern, Cheam, Surrey

Richard Wilson's The Cock Tavern, Cheam, Surrey of about 1745 depicts the rural public house in the Surrey countryside with the atmospheric sensitivity that already distinguished Wilson's early work before his Italian journey transformed his mature landscape style. Wilson trained as a portrait painter but was increasingly drawn to landscape, and his pre-Italian English subjects show a native sensitivity to the quality of English rural light that his Italian experience would systematize into a complete pictorial philosophy.

Wilson renders the suburban inn and its surroundings with naturalistic precision and a warm, English palette of greens and browns. The careful observation of light and architecture demonstrates his emerging talent for landscape painting.