- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Valle Crucis Abbey
- Abbey Valley Crucis
- Date
- 1777/07/18
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour, gum
- Dimensions
-
- image width 300mm,
- image length 483mm
- Support
- paper has a creasemark down the centre
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “Abbey Valle Crucis. Monacklog / Francis Towne del. / [indistinct date scratched out] No.51”
- in black ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No51 / A Copy of this was [indistinct word scratched out] done [dated scratched out, “17” visible] / for Sir Thomas Dyke Acland Bart. / North Wales / A View of Abbey Valley Crucis, Monacklog. Denbighshire / drawn on the spot by Francis Towne / [indistinct date scratched out]”
- Annotation
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “18 July 1777”
- in pencil, in another hand
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- FT114
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum records (image)
Provenance
Untraced until bought in 1920 for £2 10s. from Arthur Reader, Print and Book Seller of 58 Charing Cross Road, by the present owner, the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. Paul Oppé’s note suggests that this drawing was owned by Arthur Champernowne (1768–1819; see the Comment at FT602).
- Associated People & Organisations
- National Museum Wales, Cardiff, Cardiff, 1920, GBP 2 10s, NMWA 3371
- Arthur Reader, London, 1920
- [?] Arthur Harington Champernowne (1768 - 1819)
- Exhibition History
- Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 47 as Abbey Valley Crucis
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 137
- Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, A Tour Through Monmouthshire and Wales Made in the Months of June and July 1774 and in the months of June, July and August 1777: Salisbury, 1781, pp. 178-179
Other entries in Tour of Wales, 1777
Francis Towne
View of a Mountain, Perhaps near Aberddwlas
View of a Mountain, Perhaps near Aberddwlas
Francis Towne
A View near Dolgelly with Part of Cader Idris
A View near Dolgelly with Part of Cader Idris
Francis Towne
A View of the Salmon Leap from Pont Aberglaslyn
A View of the Salmon Leap from Pont Aberglaslyn
Francis Towne
The West Front of Tintern Abbey
The West Front of Tintern Abbey
Chepstow Chepstow Museum and Art Gallery
Francis Towne
The Ruins of the Great Room in Ludlow Castle, Shopshire, where Milton’s Comus was Performed
The Ruins of the Great Room in Ludlow Castle, Shopshire, where Milton’s Comus was Performed
Footnotes
- 1 Wyndham 1781, pp.178–79.
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Comment
Valle Crucis Abbey was a popular destination for visitors to the area of the Dee river near Llangollen:
Unlike Sandby and Grimm, but like the second view of the abbey in Thomas Pennant’s work, Towne has not incorporated the landscape surrounding the ruins into his picture; perhaps he shared Wyndham’s negative opinion of the scenery there.
The commission Towne notes in his inscription is dated 1788 (FT548) and is one of four North Wales views commissioned by the Acland family.
Towne contributed seven lots to Christie’s to be auctioned “for the charity benefit of an artist” on 25 March 1808, including lot 88, Valle Crucis, with a reserve of £3 3s., which may have been this drawing or one based on it (see also FT066, FT085, FT118, FT257, and FT361).