- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Near the Source of the Rhine
- Date
- ca. 1781/08/29
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and brown and grey inks, grey wash
- Dimensions
-
- image width 156mm,
- image length 209mm
- Support
- the paper has bookbinding marks along its top edge and is watermarked with part of a coat of arms
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, right
- “strong warm lights”
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, upper left
- “snow”
- Inscription
-
- verso
- “near the source of the Rhine / light from the left hand / Alps descending from mount Splugen / August 29th. 1781 / No.41 / Francis Towne”
- in brown ink over pencil until “1781”, brown ink only thereafter
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
-
- Collection
-
- (T08558)
- Catalogue Number
- FT332
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum records (image); Bower 1998
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it passed to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP65). In November 1935 Judith Merivale sold it to Paul Oppé (1878–1957; no.2114) for £15 with five other drawings (FT306, FT328, FT335, FT336, FT350), and his descendants sold it in 1996 with the rest of Oppé’s collection to the present owner, the Tate Gallery (T08558).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Tate, London, 1996, T08558
- Adolph Paul Oppé (1878 - 1957), London, November 1935, GBP 15, no.2114
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP65
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP65
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Exhibition History
- 76th Annual Exhibition of Water-Colour Drawings, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1949, no. 27
- Bibliography
- Peter Bower, 'Drawing Paper in the 18th and 19th centuries: Papers from the Opp_ Collection, part 2', The Quarterly Journal of the British Association of Paper Historians: [?] London, 1998, p. 18
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 148
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 158
Other entries in Small Sketchbook: Northern Italy, Switzerland, Savoy and Germany, August and September 1781
A View of a Bridge Fifteen Miles from Florence on the Road to Bologna
Le Rêve at the Head of Lake Como (Lago di Mezzola)
Footnotes
- 1 Bower 1998, p.18.
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Comment
The drawing depicts much the same view as another drawing Towne made on the same day, FT359. A copy by John White Abbott (FT828) contains a top portion which has been lost from this drawing, but which is on the verso of no.40 in the series, now at Rhode Island School of Design (FT331). According to Bower,1 this drawing is watermarked with “part of an unidentifiable coat of arms”, which “may well be of Swiss origin”.