- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Bissone, on Lake Lugano
- Date
- ca. 1781/08/24
- Medium
- Pen and brown and grey inks, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 155mm,
- image length 210mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto
- “F.Towne / delt 1781 No 17”
- in brown ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No 17 / Besoni on the Lake of Lugano / drawn on the Spot by / Francis Towne August 24. 1781”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT309
- Description Sources
- Examination; Sotheby's records (image)
Provenance
Untraced until August 1952 when “recently acquired” by E. S. Hargreaves of West Kirby, Cheshire, and in the collection of J. Pierce Higgins before 1960. On 1 July 1960 it was acquired “from a UK private individual” by Spink, where on 31 October 1960 it was purchased for £140 by Geoffrey Fenwick Jocelyn Cumberlege (1891–1979), whose wife sold it at Sotheby’s on 8 April 1998, lot 44, whereafter it is untraced. The Art Sales Index records the sale at Christie’s on 11 November 1958, lot 147, to Abbott for £110 of Bisone on the Lake of Lugano, which is probably this drawing.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Untraced
- Sotheby's, London, London, 8 April 1998, lot 44
- [?] Private Collection, 11 November 1958, GBP 110
The Art Sales Index records the sale to “Abbott” - [?] Christie's, London, London, 11 November 1958, lot 147
- Geoffrey Fenwick Jocelyn Cumberlege (1891 - 1979), 31 October 1960, £140
It was sold by Spink - Spink & Son, London, London, 1 July 1960
- J. Pierce Higgins, 1960
- E. S. Hargreaves, August 1952
- Exhibition History
- Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 114 or 115 as 'Besoni on the Lake of Lugano'
- Bibliography
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 89
Other entries in Small Sketchbook: Northern Italy, Switzerland, Savoy and Germany, August and September 1781
Francis Towne
A View of a Bridge Fifteen Miles from Florence on the Road to Bologna
A View of a Bridge Fifteen Miles from Florence on the Road to Bologna
Francis Towne
Le Rêve at the Head of Lake Como (Lago di Mezzola)
Le Rêve at the Head of Lake Como (Lago di Mezzola)
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Comment
Bissone is a small town on the south-east border of Lake Lugano.