- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Ambleside
- Date
- 1786/08/07
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and brown ink
- Dimensions
-
- image width 155mm,
- image length 240mm
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto
- “white” and “brown” in pencil
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “No.1 Ambleside August 7. 1786”
- in ink
- Part of
-
- Partially-disbound sketchbook sold by Judith Merivale to H. B. Milling of Squire Gallery
- Object Type
- Outline only
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT455
- Description Sources
- Paul Oppé records; Sotheby’s records; Witt Library (image)
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it reverted 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 by 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 Squire Gallery for £25. The drawing is thereafter untraced until it was offered for sale at Sotheby’s on 10 March 1988, lot 150, and again at Sotheby’s on 25 January 1989, lot 53; in 1997 it was in a “Private Collection, England”.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Private Collection
- Sotheby's, London, London, 25 January 1989, lot 53
- Sotheby's, London, London, 10 March 1988, lot 150
- Squire Gallery, 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
- Bibliography
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 109
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
Footnotes
- 1 Paul Oppé records: notes, ca. 1915.
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Comment
In his notes on the 1786 sketchbook Paul Oppé describes this drawing thus: “foreground study, rocks & plants. brown ink over pencil. Two figures (do [ditto, i.e. brown ink over pencil]) notes white. brown of colour in pencil.”1
Within the 1945 rump of the sketchbook it was the very first drawing, before FT462. There are two Ambleside drawings numbered 1: this and FT454. Evidently Towne decided not to open his series of Cumberland views with this modest study.