- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- A View of the Cataract of the Mawddwy
- Cataract of the Mothvay
- Date
- 1777
- Medium
- Pen and grey ink, watercolour, scratching out
- Dimensions
-
- image width 318mm,
- image length 432mm
- Support
- four sheets of laid paper.
- Mount
- mounted by the artist (but since detached)
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “No.14 / F.Towne delt / 1777”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No.14 / A View of the Cataract of the Mothvaye / in Merionethshire North Wales / drawn on the spot / by / Francis Towne / 1777 / London / Leicester Square / June 20th 1777” in ink and “Mawdach Rhaiadr Mawdach [indistinct]”
- in pencil
- Watermark
-
- sheet, verso
- “I VILLEDARY”
- According to Christies in 2012
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT079
- Description Sources
- 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 granddaughter Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853–1923) inherited the drawing in 1915 and on her death it passed to her sister Frances Ann Laura Solly (b.1858), who sold it in May 1936 to Agnew’s (no.1990) for £30, where it was bought on 28 May 1936 by Wayland Wells Williams (1888–1945) of the USA for £42. By 1950 it had descended to Mrs Elizabeth Williams Garstin, and by 1962 to Mrs Cynthia Garstin Blackwell of Albuquerque, USA, whose estate sold it at Christie’s on 21 November 2007, lot 27, for £31,700 including fees to Andrew Wyld of W. S. Fine Art Ltd, where it was for sale in 2008 and 2009. It was offered for sale from Andrew Wyld’s estate (he died in 2011) by Christie’s on 10 July 2012, lot 60 (estimate £20,000 to £30,000), but it did not sell. Guy Peppiatt bought it after the sale and sold it in 2015.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Private Collection, 2015
- Guy Peppiatt, 2012
- Christie's, London, London, 10 July 2012, lot 60
Estimate £20,000 to £30,000, unsold. - W S Fine Art, London, 21 November 2007, GBP 31000
- Christie's, London, London, 21 November 2007, lot 27
- Cynthia Garstin Blackwell, 1962
- Elizabeth Williams Garstin, 1950
- Wayland Wells Williams (1888 - 1945), 28 May 1936, GBP 42
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, May 1936, GBP 30, no. 1990
- Frances Ann Laura Solly (1858 - alive in 1932), 1923
- Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853 - 1923), 1915
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Exhibition History
- Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 46 as 'Cataract of the Mothvay'
- Exhibition of Selected Watercolour Drawings by Artists of the Early English School, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1922, no. 120
- The 49th Exhibition of Selected Watercolour Drawings by Artists of the Early English School In Aid of the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1922, no. 7
- The Fiftieth Annual Exhibition of Selected Water Colour Drawings, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1923, no. 22
- Art in New England: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints from Private Collections in New England, Museum of Fine Arts, 1939, no. 632
- Prospects: An Exhibition of English Landscape Watercolours from English and American Private Collections, Yale University Gallery, 1950, no. 60
- Watercolours and Drawings, W/S Fine Art Ltd Andrew Wyld, 2005, no. 2008 and 2009 Summer Exhibitions, no.9 in both cases
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 151
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 43
- 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. 114-115
Other entries in Tour of Wales, 1777
View of a Mountain, Perhaps near Aberddwlas
A View near Dolgelly with Part of Cader Idris
A View of the Salmon Leap from Pont Aberglaslyn
The West Front of Tintern Abbey
Chepstow Chepstow Museum and Art Gallery
The Ruins of the Great Room in Ludlow Castle, Shopshire, where Milton’s Comus was Performed
Footnotes
- 1 Wyndham 1781, pp.114–15.
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Comment
This waterfall is about two miles off the road running north from Penmaenpool to Tan y Bwlch (FT084, FT113). Wyndham promoted the falls, which were evidently less celebrated than others in the area like Pistyll Rhaeadr (FT071) and Rhaiddr Du (FT082).
Dollgellau was in the Hundred of Mawddwy and the “Mothvaye” is here transcribed with that spelling.