- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Bay of Naples
- Italian Landscape with lake and building - 1784
- Landscape with a Bay
- Date
- 1784
- Medium
- Pencil, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 389mm,
- image length 622mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “Francis[scraped out of the watercolour] Towne delt. 1784”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Versions
- The Island of Capri
- Catalogue Number
- FT414
- Description Sources
- Museum records (image)
Provenance
This drawing was one of two Towne watercolours dated 1784 (also FT416) that were sold at Sotheby’s on 9 June 1937. This was lot 37 (A Landscape with a Bay, signed and dated “1784, Water-colour”, measuring 15 x 24.5 in.), which was sold to “Sieverdink” for £3 according to an annotated copy of the catalogue at the Courtauld Institute of Art (information kindly supplied by Donato Esposito). In Miss Scott-Elliott’s catalogue of the Oppé collection Paul Oppé identified the subjects as as a view of Capri “with a companion ‘Pozzuoli’”. Art Prices Current gives the titles of the two watercolours as Landscape with a Bay, sold to Nightingale for £27, and Italian Landscape, sold to Walker’s Galleries for £15. That said, it seems likely that both drawings were bought by Walker’s Galleries, as they had two 1784 Towne watercolours on sale in 1937–38 whose measurements were the same as the two sold at Sotheby’s in 1937. The present drawing was bequeathed by Joseph de Carle Smith (d. ca. 1980) of Norwich to the present owner, Norwich Castle Museum (1980.402.1:F).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, 1980, 1980.402.1:F
- Joseph de Carle Smith ( - ca. 1980)
- Sotheby's, London, London, 9 June 1937, lot 37
Listed as 'A Landscape with a Bay'
Other entries in Studio Watercolours, 1783–1800
Much Wenlock, Shropshire, with the Ruins of the Priory Church
The Wrekin, on the Road between Much Wenlock and Shrewsbury
A View going from the Head of Lake Como over Mount Splugen
The Campagna near Rome looking towards the Sabine Mountains
A View of Loreto with Part of the Adriatic Sea
A View near the Arco Scuro Looking towards the Villa Medici
An Evening View from Mount Palatine looking towards Mount Aventine
A View on the Banks of the Tiber near Monte Milvio
A View of the Temple of Venus looking towards the Island of Nisida
Chateau de Glerolles, near Vevey on Lake Geneva
Abbey Valley Crucis, near Llangollen on the River Dee, North Wales
A View on the Banks of the Dee above Llangollen
A View of the Bay of Naples with the Island of Capri
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Comment
This is one of several versions of FT240.