This is a view of Exeter based on a drawing (FT021) reworked and inscribed in 1787:

“A View of Exeter between Exwick, & Cowley bridge, / on the Hill looking towards Exeter, with the river on your left hand / this is the original outline, that the large picture was painted from / that was in the Exhibition 1773 / Francis Towne 1787.”

Towne’s inscription confirms his viewpoint as somewhere on or near the Crediton Road looking south-south-east down the Exe valley towards Exeter and beyond to the Exe valley. The cathedral dominates the skyline and there are some other towers within the city to which Towne has given some individuality. Generally, though, having described the only Exeter landmark that a London audience might recognise, he is not concerned with topographical exactness in the manner of earlier artists of the Exeter skyline, like the Buck brothers, who published a panoramic view of the city in 1736. Rather Towne wishes to depict a compact city neatly abutting the countryside. In the right part of the image—representing Exeter’s poor and relatively industrialised western corner—mills, bridge and other buildings are omitted in favour of a dense arrangement of houses whose bright rooftops contrast with the darker greens of the Exminster fields spreading out beyond the city towards the estuary,¹ and whose boundary with the countryside on the near side is marked with a bare straight line in harsh contrast with the lusher more naturalised margins of the wealthier northern and eastern quarters to its left. Bustle and industry are implied not only by these tightly packed houses but the smoke emanating from this working part of the city. The buildings of Exmouth and Lympstone along the far shore are briefly indicated as dashes of white paint and there is a suburban building on the near side of Exeter, which may be Duryard.