Capriccio (Rex Whistler) on:
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''Capriccio'' is a large wall mural by the English painter Rex Whistler (1905–1944). It hangs in the dining room of Plas Newydd, the historic home of the Marquesses of Anglesey, now owned by the 
National Trust
The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...
, which has views over the Menai Strait
The Menai Strait () is a strait which separates the island of Anglesey from Gwynedd, on the mainland of Wales. It is situated between Caernarfon Bay in the south-west and Conwy Bay in the north-east, which are both inlets of the Irish Sea. The s ...
and the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales
North Wales ( ) is a Regions of Wales, region of Wales, encompassing its northernmost areas. It borders mid Wales to the south, England to the east, and the Irish Sea to the north and west. The area is highly mountainous and rural, with Snowdon ...
. The mural is Whistler's largest work, and also the largest canvas painting in the United Kingdom.
The work was executed onsite between 1936 and 1938. It is 58 feet long, taking up an entire wall of the dining room. It is a ''trompe-l'œil
; ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional surface. , which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving p ...
'' harbour scene and seascape, its subject matter is Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...
in style but mixes views of "British and Italian buildings, and the mountains of Snowdonia".
The mural includes a self-portrait of Whistler carrying a broom as the work continues into the south-side colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...
.
References
1930s murals 1938 paintings Collections of the National Trust Murals in Wales Paintings by Rex Whistler Paintings in Wales Trompe-l'œil paintings Ships in art Maritime paintings {{20C-painting-stub