- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Alpine River
- Date
- ca. 1781
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour with gum, scratching out
- Dimensions
-
- image width 288mm,
- image length 468mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No.2 [cut off at edge; a second digit is present, but illegible]”
- Signature
-
- verso
- Bury (in 1962) wrote: “Signature F Towne is partly erased but still just legible”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT362
- Description Sources
- Examination (image); Bury 1962
Provenance
Untraced until bought by Iolo Anuerin Williams (1890–1962) for £10 by 1929. It remains in a private collection.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Private Collection
- Iolo Anuerin Williams (1890 - 1962), 1929, GBP 10
- Exhibition History
- [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 99 or 117 as 'Near the Source of the Rhine'
- unidentified exhibition, 1929
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 149
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
The mount has been cut, removing almost all the inscription. The number begins with a 2 and, as drawings numbered 21 to 29 are known, this drawing is likely to be number 20 if it is part of the same series. The river subject, whose composition is similar to FT363, may well be the Hinterrhein near its source, on the basis of which it is suggested as one of the 1805 exhibits Near the Source of the Rhine.
This drawing, like number 19 in the large Swiss series (FT361), has clearly been worked on long after 1781, with the addition of colour, figures walking along the path, and the working up of atmospheric effect in the sky and river.