Description
Creator
Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
Title(s)
  • Loughrigg, near Ambleside
  • Loff Rigg near ditto [Ambleside]
  • Lough Rigg, Ambleside
Date
1786
Medium
Pencil, pen and brown and grey inks, watercolour, gum
Dimensions
  • image width 156mm,
  • image length 236mm
Mount
mounted by the artist
Inscription
  • sheet, recto, lower left
  • “No5. F.Towne / 1786”
Inscription
  • artist's mount, verso
  • “No.5 / Loff Rigg near Ambleside Westmoreland / drawn on the Spot by / Francis Towne / [“1786” scratched out] / morning light from the / right hand”
Object Type
Watercolour

Collection
Catalogue Number
FT459
Description Sources
Examination; Museum records (image)

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it reverted to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughter Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853–1923) inherited the drawing in 1915 and she sold it on 10 (according to Agnew’s) June 1921 to Agnew’s (no.9976) for £30, where on 7 (according to Agnew’s and the museum) June 1921 it was purchased (for £75 with FT487) by the Friends of Fitzwilliam Museum for the current owner, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (no.1051).

Associated People & Organisations

Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 7 June 1921, GBP 75, no.1051
Acquired with FT487
Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 10 June 1921, GBP 30, no.9976
Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853 - 1923), 1915
John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
Exhibition History
Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 62 as 'Loff Rigg near ditto [Ambleside]'
Beauty, Horror, Immensity, Fitzwilliam Museum, 1981, no. 118
Bibliography
Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, pp. 103, 129
Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 120

Comment

This is a view of Rydal Water from the Nab Cottage area on the Rydal to Grasmere road, looking across to Rydal Caves (the dark area above the trees in the right mid-ground) and Loughrigg behind it. The peaks of the Langdale Pikes are in the left distance.

by Richard Stephens

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