- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- The Force above Skelwith Bridge
- Date
- 1786/08/12
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black and brown inks, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 235mm,
- image length 152mm
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “Light from the left hand The Force” in pencil and “No18. The force above Skellit bridge / August 12th. 1786 / light from the left hand 3 O Clock. / F.Towne.” in ink
- Part of
-
- Partially-disbound sketchbook sold by Judith Merivale to H. B. Milling of Squire Gallery
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT472
- Description Sources
- Paul Oppé notes; 1997 Tate catalogue (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 within a partially disbound sketchbook containing FT455, FT462, FT470, FT471, FT472, FT475, FT476, FT477, FT478, FT480, FT494, FT495, FT496. In February 1945 Judith Merivale sold the book to H. B. Milling of the Squire Gallery for £25 (although it is not clear if this drawing was part of that sale). The drawing is untraced until its sale at Phillips on 21 November 1988, lot 18, for £3,600 to Leger Galleries and was in a “Private Collection” in 1997.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Private Collection
- Leger Galleries, London, 21 November 1988, GBP 3600
- Phillips, London, 21 November 1988, lot 18
- [?] Horace Bernard Milling (1898 - 1954), London, February 1945, GBP 25
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
Other entries in Lake District, 1786
A View at Ambleside, near Sir Michael Fleming’s on the Road to Keswick
A View taken at Ambleside at the Head of Lake Windermere
Looking from Ambleside across Lake Windermere
A View near the Turnpike on the Way from Low Wood to Ambleside
Looking to the Mountains over the Head of Buttermere
A View at Low Wood, looking across the Head of Lake Windermere
Raven Crag and Part of Thirlmere
Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam Museum
St John’s in the Vale, looking towards Grasmere
St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
A View in St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
On the Side of Lake Windermere, near the Turnpike
A View of Derwent Water looking towards Lodore Falls
A View from the Cascade in the Groves at Ambleside
At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
A View of Rydal Water looking towards Rydal Hall
Elter Force, near Ambleside
National Gallery National Gallery of Victoria
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Comment
Skelwith Bridge is a village two miles west of Ambleside. Just to its west is the small waterfall in Towne’s drawing, known as Skelwith Force. Presumably sketching while seated on the rocks at bottom right, Towne has cut short the wooded hills top right in order to let in some sky, and has bolstered the mass of stone in the right half of the picture by adding in the rock pile at the top-right corner.
This drawing was still in the 1786 sketchbook when Paul Oppé saw it but by the 1932 exhibition must have been extracted, as it was displayed on its own. It was on a sheet after a view of Clappersgate (FT471) and before an unfinished landscape (FT475).
As well as this drawing, both FT469 and FT473 are dated 12 August.