- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- A View from the Flagstaff in the Citadel
- Date
- 1815/09/05
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image height 140mm,
- image width 456mm
- Inscription
-
- verso
- on one sheet, “From the flagstaff in the citadel, / Stadden Height on the left, / Ram Head on the Right. / Mount Batten in the middle distance.”, and on the other sheet, “Breakwater / from 11 to 1 o’clock, / Sept 5 1815 Francis Towne”
- Part of
-
- 1815 Sketchbook
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- FT779
- Description Sources
- Museum records (image)
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it passed to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 as part of a sketchbook containing FT765 to FT786, which they gave to their cousin Mary Ann Loveband (b.1865, alive in 1951), who sold the book to Agnew’s on 17 May 1938 for £60. On 2 March 1939 Agnew’s (no.2701) sold this drawing for £18 to the National Art Collections Fund, who gave it to the current owner, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery (Inv. 1939.05).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery, Plymouth, 1939, Inv 1939.05
- National Art Collections Fund, 2 March 1939, GBP 18
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 17 May 1938, GBP 60, no.2701
- Mary Ann Loveband (1865 - alive in 1951)
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915
Inherited as part of a sketchbook containing FT765 to FT786. - Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915
Inherited as part of a sketchbook containing FT765 to FT786. - John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 136
Other entries in 1815 Sketchbook
On the Road over the Moor to Tavistock
Maurice Dear
Fort Olda with Part of the Abbey, Tavistock
Footnotes
- 1 Donn 1965, pl.12a.
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Comment
The citadel was the fortress built by Charles II at the south end of Plymouth.1
The National Art Collections Fund called this work “‘Plymouth Breakwater from Cattedown’, a little way up the Cattewater, Staddon Heights on the left, Rame Head on the right, Mount Batten in the middle dist” and Agnew’s in 1938 called it “Cattedown, a little way up the Cattewater”. It seems likely, then, that Towne’s inscription once made reference to the Cattewater.