Near the Arco Oscuro

Description

Creator: Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)

Title(s)

Near the Arco Oscuro
A hollow near the Arco Oscuro

Date: 1780/11/28

Medium: pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour

Dimensions

image width 320mm,
image length 472mm

Support: laid paper with a vertical crease across its centre

Mount: mounted by the artist

Inscription

sheet, recto, lower centre
"F.Towne. delt. Rome / Novr. 28. 1780. No.14"
in black ink

Inscription

artist's mount, verso
"No.14 / Near the Arco Scuro. [scratched out "May 7th. 1781"] / Rome. Francis Towne. delt."
in brown ink

Object Type: Watercolour

Collection

(Nn,2.20)

Catalogue Number: FT184

Description Sources: Examination; Museum records (image)

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744-1825), who gave it in 1816 to the present owner, the British Museum, London (1972.U.730 / Nn.2.20)

Associated People & Organisations: British Museum; James White (1744 - 1825)

Exhibition History: [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 154, 155 or 156 as Near the Arco Oscuro; unidentified exhibition, British Museum, 1934, no. 298; British Artists in Rome 1700-1800, Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood House, 1974, no. 140; unidentified exhibition, British Museum, 1981; British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860 at the British Museum, British Museum, 1985, no. 33; Light, time, legacy: Francis Towne’s watercolours of Rome, British Museum, 2016

Bibliography: Laurence Binyon, Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists and Artists of Foreign Origin Working in Great Britain Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum: London, 1907, p. 200; Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 76, 124; Henri Lemaitre, Le Paysage Anglais a l'Aquarelle 1760-1951, Bordas: Paris, 1955, p. 154; Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 67

Comment

This study of foliage was made near the Arco Oscuro (literally “dark arch”), an area of countryside beside the Tiber and near Villa Giulia, north of Rome. This place, popular with artists because of the views available of the Vatican, was named after an ancient cave, adjacent to Villa Giulia, which contained a chapel whose entrance was built by Pope Innocentius XI Odescalchi in 1686. Towne made several drawings in this area (FT185, FT187, FT188, FT208, FT211), all of which feature a well-built road, very probably the Via Flaminia.

Towne has used ink applied with a brush to define areas of the foliage foreground left, which may be work done later than 1781.

by Richard Stephens

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Provenance

Comment

Other entries in Rome Series, October 1780–July 1781

Inside the Colosseum 1780

A View on the Banks of the Tiber 1780

On the Banks of the Tiber near Ponte Molle 1780

On the Banks of the Tiber near Ponte Molle 1780

Two Miles from Rome going out at the Porta Pia 1780

Part of the Ancient Roman Wall between Porta Salara and Porta Pinciana 1780

Temple of Bacchus in the Distance 1780

Temple of Bacchus Two Miles from Rome 1780

Two Miles from Rome, going out at Porta Salara 1780

A View from Martinelli's Vineyard 1780

Inside the Colosseum 1781

Inside the Colosseum 1780

From the Palatine Hill 1780