- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
- Date
- 1786/08
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and brown and grey inks, watercolour with gum
- Dimensions
-
- image width 263mm,
- image length 381mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F Towne / delt 1786”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “A View at Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves / at the Head of the Lake of Windermere / drawn on the Spot by Francis Towne / August 1786 / NB the paper this is drawn on I brought from Rome / myself”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT518
- Description Sources
- Sotheby’s records; 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 granddaugher Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853–1923) inherited the drawing in 1915 and in 1932 it was owned by her sister Frances Ann Laura Solly (b.1858). In 1948 the drawing was on sale at Walker’s Galleries (where it may have been bought by Mrs E. M. Young, as by 1952 it was described as ex coll. Mrs Solly and Mrs Young), and it was owned by Henry Charles Green (1883/84–1966) by 22 February 1952, when he sold it at Christie’s, lot 101, for £273 to Agnew’s (no.6815) on behalf of Captain Vivian Bulkeley-Johnson (1890/91–1968) of The Mount, Oxfordshire. It was sold by The Mount Trust Collection at Christie’s on 14 November 1972, lot 93, for £4,800. It was sold at Sotheby’s on 19 November 1981, lot 115, for £3,200, whereafter it is untraced.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Untraced
- Private Collection, 19 November 1981, GBP 3200
- Sotheby's, London, London, 19 November 1981, lot 115
- Private Collection, 14 November 1972, GBP 4800
- Christie's, London, London, 14 November 1972, lot 93
- Mount Trust Collection
- Captain Vivian Bulkeley-Johnson (1890/91 - 1968), 22 February 1952
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 22 February 1952, GBP 273, no.6815
- Christie's, London, London, 22 February 1952, lot 101
- Henry Charles Green (1883/84 - 1966), 1952
- [?] Mrs E. M. Young, 1948
- Walker's Galleries, London, 1948
- Frances Ann Laura Solly (1858 - alive in 1932), 1932
- Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853 - 1923), 1825
- 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. 95 as 'At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves'
- Loan Exhibition of Works by Early Devon Painters Born Before the Year 1800, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1932, no. 115
- unidentified exhibition, Walker's Galleries, 1948, no. 126
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 94
- 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.
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Comment
As Towne’s inscription indicates, this is a view looking towards Ambleside on the way back to town from Stock Ghyll Force. Towne is looking west-north-west towards Rydal in the left horizon and part of Fairfield Horseshoe in the centre distance. The long building on the left is probably the Salutation Inn; the buildings in the centre on the far bank of the river are Horrax Bobbin Mills. The inn also features in Towne’s smaller view of 14 August (FT479). A further work, FT519, may be of much the same spot.
Paul Oppé saw this in Emily Buckingham’s collection on 16 July 1915, noting “Ambleside N.B.drawn on Roman paper” and the “yellow sunset sky”, and he considered it “very well composed & brilliant in colour”.1