- Description
-
- Creator
- Berchem Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Sheep
- Date
- No date
- Medium
- Pen and ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image height 184mm,
- image length 136mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- signed
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT810
- Description Sources
- Baskett & Day catalogue; Christie’s records (image)
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 (BP274 Copy of (?) Berghem. F.T. in the Compositions group). On 12 April 1946 Judith Merivale’s executors sold the drawing to Agnew’s (no.4559), who offered it for sale by auction at Puttick & Simpson on 27 December 1946. The drawing was on sale at Baskett & Day in 1974, and it was sold at Christie’s on 18 March 1980, lot 18, for £1,200, whereafter it is untraced.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Untraced
- Private Collection, 18 March 1980, GBP 1200
- Christie's, London, London, 18 March 1980, lot 18
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 12 April 1946, no.4559
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP274
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP274
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
Other entries in Compositions and Copies, 1782–95
A Memory of Lord Ashburnham’s Claude
Study in the Style of Salvator Rosa
Study in the Style of Salvator Rosa
Study in the Style of Salvator Rosa
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Comment
This is apparently an idealised landscape in emulation of Nicholaes Berchem (1620–1683), one of the Dutch Italianates whose etchings of animal subjects were well known in Towne’s day. Another study of sheep, FT641, has not been photographed.