- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- The Other Source of the Rhine
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, grey wash
- Dimensions
-
- image width 286mm,
- image length 468mm
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “the other source of the Rhine / Bas Rhin / Sun on the left Hand / No.21 August the 30th. 1781 / sun on the left hand”
- in pencil except the central portion, “Bas [. . .] 1781”, which is in brown ink
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
-
- Collection
-
- (DBB1822)
- Catalogue Number
- FT363
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum 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 (BP66). Judith Merivale presented it to Dr K. T. Parker for donation to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the present owner, in June 1945 (DBB1822).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, June 1945, DBB1822
Judith Merivale presented it to Dr K. T. Parker for donation to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford - Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP66
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP66
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Exhibition History
- Annual Water Colour Exhibition 1926, The Judge's Lodgings, Winchester, 1926, no. 116
- Bibliography
- David Blaney Brown, Ashmolean Museum Catalogue of Drawings Vol 4: Earlier English Drawings, Clarendon: Oxford, 1982, p. 628
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 130
Other entries in C&I Honig Series: Northern Italy and Switzerland, August and September 1781
Francis Towne
“Lago Torfi”, near Lugano
“Lago Torfi”, near Lugano
National Gallery National Gallery of Victoria
Francis Towne
Waterfall between Chiavenna and Mount Splugen
Waterfall between Chiavenna and Mount Splugen
Francis Towne
In the Valley of the Grisons looking on Tusis
In the Valley of the Grisons looking on Tusis
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Comment
Brown states that this drawing “probably shows Lake Toma in the St Gothard Group, from which rises the Vorder Rhein”. However, there seems to be too much choppy movement in the water, in too narrow a channel, for this to be a lake, and Towne cannot have reached the area of Lake Toma on the same day that he visited Reichenau (FT364), and only a day after having crossed the Splugen Pass (FT332, FT357). It is probably therefore a view of the Vorderrhein near Reichenau. In describing the subject as “the other source of the Rhine”, Towne was not indicating that the sketch was made near the source of the Vorderrhein but that the Vorderrhein was the second of two sources of the Rhine, which joined at Reichenau. Towne had sketched the first of the sources, the Hinterrhein, the previous day.