- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Near Glarus
- Date
- ca. 1780 - 1790
- Medium
- Pencil, watercolour, gum
- Dimensions
-
- image width 307mm,
- image length 234mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “Near Glaris / Francis Towne”
- in brown ink
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT547
- Description Sources
- Examination; Sotheby's records (image)
Provenance
Sold at Sotheby’s on 6 July 2010, lot 211, for £6,250 (incl fees). It was sold by American owners, in whose family it had been for many years (and certainly since December 1978). Probably this is the drawing that was with the Fine Art Society in London in 1939 and 1941. On 27 May 1939 they sold a “Near Glaris” to H. G. Paterson. “Near Glaris” is also recorded as having been sold on 11 November 1941 to M. Guerin (perhaps the French art historian of that name?). Various twentieth-century pencil inscriptions on the back of the mount may add weight to the suggestion that the Fine Art Society drawing is the one sold at Sotheby’s in 2010. One, “Mr Jamerac / 1 Saint[?] Oal / 1/3”, might be associated with the ownership by Guerin, since, though it is difficult to read, it has a somewhat French character. Other inscriptions include a dealer’s stock number “A11527” with a price in code, “HX/-/-”, and a rubbed-out price.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Private Collection
- Sotheby's, London, London, 6 July 2010, lot 211
- [?] M. Guerin, 11 November 1941
- [?] H. G. Paterson, 27 May 1939
- Exhibition History
- [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 100 or 108 as 'Near Glaris'
- [?] Exhibition of Early English Watercolours, Fine Art Society, 1939, no. no.19 as 'Near Glaris verso s.i. as title'
- [?] Exhibition of Early English Watercolours, Fine Art Society, 1941, no. no.4 as 'Near Glaris'
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 a view of the Glarus valley in Switzerland dating from the late 1780s or perhaps early 1790s, and based on a sketch (FT371a, now lost) that Towne must have made in early September 1781. According to a note on the backing, the American owners showed this drawing to Lord Eccles in December 1978, who confirmed the attribution to Towne. The attribution is beyond doubt, as it is a work typical of Towne’s finished style of the late 1780s, such as seen in the group of watercolours he made for the Acland family (for instance FT551 and FT553, dated 1788 and 1790). The inscription is also undoubtedly Towne’s hand.
This sketch is unknown but the composition is broadly similar to two sketches made nearby, on 2 and 3 September (FT367, FT371), with the comparison especially close to FT367: both are upright views of mountain tops, strongly framed on one side by a tree in shade. It is impossible to say with confidence where Towne’s lost sketch for FT547 was placed within the large Swiss series. But as the entire numbered sequence of drawings between 21 and 29 survives—covering Towne’s journey into the Glarus valley and down to its southern end—we can speculate that the present drawing is based on one that was drawn afterwards, as Towne made his progress back up the valley towards Weesen on 3 or 4 September.
Towne exhibited two Glarus views at the 1805 Lower Brook Street show (100 and 108, both Near Glaris), and this may be one of them; the other is presumed to be lost (FT547a).