This is presumed to be a copy by John Baverstock Knight (1785–1859) of an unknown drawing by Towne, probably from the 1777 tour (FT097a), although Towne also sketched at Conwy in 1809 (FT668, FT669, FT670). Baverstock Knight was a prolific, acquisitive sketcher who travelled a great deal in south-west England on social visits. The inclusion of this drawing as a copy after Towne rests on the verso inscription, which is understood to refer to Towne’s death in 1816, but there is little in the watercolour itself that points to Towne. His source may well have been a drawing that Towne had worked up in later life.

Baverstock Knight’s work was showcased at a Squire Gallery exhibition in 1931, when The Times observed that his works “show a great variety of styles, with suggestions of Francis Towne in some of them”.¹ Martin Hardie also noted a “striking” and “fundamental similarity of style” between the work of the two men,² and placed Knight in the chapter on “Francis Towne and his followers”. It is true that Baverstock Knight shared with Towne a fairly sparse and highly structured sketching style, often using pen and monochrome washes, but they shared these with many of their contemporary sketchers. And doubtless—as this copy seems to confirm—Baverstock Knight would have known and admired Towne’s work, just as Hubert Cornish must have done. But neither Baverstock Knight nor Cornish were followers of Towne, in the sense that William Jackson, John White Abbott, or John Herman Merivale were, in adopting Towne’s style and methods of drawing more or less entirely.

The Exeter catalogue states that the note is “by a later hand that this work was taken from his portfolio after his death in 1859”, but that is not the case.³