- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Convent of S. Eframo Vecchio
- Date
- 1781/03/31
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour, gum, scratching out
- Dimensions
-
- image width 324mm,
- image length 471mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist, but now cut down in size
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F.Towne / 1781. No.14”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, recto
- “S EFREMO VECCHIO AT NAPLES [partially obliterated]”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No.14 / St. Efremo Vecchio at Naples / drawn on the Spot / by / Francis Towne / [“March 31st. 1781” scratched out] 1781”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Versions
- Convent of S Eframo Vecchio
- Catalogue Number
- FT241
- Description Sources
- Author's examination of the work
Provenance
The owner since 1904 has been the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (D.954-1904).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Victoria and Albert Museum
- Exhibition History
- [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 187 as 'St.Efremo Vecchio, at Naples'
- Paesaggio Napoletano nella Pittura Straniera, Palazzo Reale, Naples, 1962
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, pp. 79, 128
- Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 95
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 151
Other entries in Naples, March 1781
Footnotes
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
Comment
This drawing depicts the monastery of S. Eframo Vecchio, on the east side of Capodimonte on the way to Santa Maria de’ Monti. Thomas Jones noted that he spent time with Towne on 31 March 1781,1 which is the date that Towne inscribed on the mount of this drawing (before later scratching it out). As this monastery was not a common destination for foreign artists, perhaps this was one of the “picturesque Scenes of my Own discovery, entirely out of the common road of occasional Visiters, either Cavaliers or Artists, from Rome”,2 to which Jones led Towne during his stay in Naples.
The drawing has clearly been worked on extensively during a period much later than 1781. Towne made a copy dated 1783 (FT395).