- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- A View of Rocca di Papa with Part of the Convent
- Date
- 1781
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour with gum, scratching out
- Dimensions
-
- image width 387mm,
- image length 504mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist, the mount watermarked "J WHATMAN 1794"
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “F.Towne / 1781”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “Italy / No52 / A View of Rocca del Papa / with part of the Convent, the outline drawn on the / Spot / 1781[in dark brown ink, over scratched-out “1781, & tinted / Oct 10th. 180 . . . by”] Francis Towne”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
-
- (Nn,3.13)
- Catalogue Number
- FT282
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum records (image)
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), who gave it in 1818 to the present owner, the British Museum (Nn,3.13).
- Associated People & Organisations
- British Museum, London, 1816, Nn,3.13
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Exhibition History
- unidentified exhibition, British Museum, 1981
- Light, time, legacy: Francis Towne’s watercolours of Rome, British Museum, 2016
- Bibliography
- Laurence Binyon, Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists and Artists of Foreign Origin Working in Great Britain Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum: London, 1907, p. 203
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, pp. 127-128
- Martin Hardie, Water-Colour Painting in Britain, ed. Dudley Snelgrove, London: B. T. Batsford, 1966, p. 121
- Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 112
Other entries in Italy Series, April to June 1781
Francis Towne
Thirteen Miles on the Road from Rome to Tivoli
Thirteen Miles on the Road from Rome to Tivoli
Francis Towne
A View of Rocca di Papa with Part of the Convent
A View of Rocca di Papa with Part of the Convent
Francis Towne
A View of the Spot where Hannibal is said to have looked at Rome
A View of the Spot where Hannibal is said to have looked at Rome
Francis Towne
A View of the Spot from which Hannibal is said to have looked at Rome
A View of the Spot from which Hannibal is said to have looked at Rome
Francis Towne
Monte Porzio Catone from the Park of the Villa Mondragone at Frascati
Monte Porzio Catone from the Park of the Villa Mondragone at Frascati
Francis Towne
Blasted Pine Tree in the Villa Mondragone, Frascati
Blasted Pine Tree in the Villa Mondragone, Frascati
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Comment
Thomas Jones sketched this subject on 22 April 1777.1
The year when Towne reworked this drawing is unclear, although perhaps it is 1805, as he was working on another old watercolour on 2 October that year (51), or 1801, when he was finishing a Welsh view on 21 October (FT082). Oppé, however, noted that Towne’s work “is apparently dated 1803 on the front”.2