This is a study of beech trees at Peamore near Exeter, the location identified from a copy made in 1802 by John White Abbott (FT836), for whom the tree was a repeated object of study (see figs.836a and 836b). 

Paul Oppé’s note of three tree studies from Barton Place reads: “242–4. Trees on bad paper. Very delicate outline & leaves near to Downman. Pretty colour grey, green & blue. very dainty & careful. Not lurid but transparent and strong. Crumble outline in two like Dulwich sketch book. Quite flat. Thin Whatman paper.” The Barton Place catalogue describes BP242, the drawing catalogued here, as “Trees 14⅜ x 8¾ [365 x 222 mm] 1800” and brackets the other two drawings as if to suggest that they share its dimensions, which makes sense if Paul Oppé is describing paper common to all three. In another note Oppé compares FT629 with these three drawings: “Much pen outline of foliage in trees & undergrowth like the 3 of 1800”; and elsewhere Oppé (who was then unaware of John White Abbott’s copy of this drawing that locates FT624 at Peamore) suggests that the trees were in Hampstead, writing: “The Hampstead trees – 3 – Downman – no loss of power.” Oppé was no doubt thinking of Dowman’s studies of trees in his own collection, now at the Tate. Oppé’s mention of a Dulwich sketchbook is a reference to two drawings Towne made there in 1812 (FT734, FT735). The other two drawings in the group of three are perhaps FT632 and FT633, late tree studies of the same size as this work.

In his article Oppé describes not three but “four drawings of trees, probably about 1800 . . . exceedingly dainty and careful studies in pretty transparent colouring.”¹ However, unless he had miscounted, he was probably describing not these but four others (FT636, FT637, FT638, FT639).