- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Great Fulford
- Date
- 1776/08/08
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink
- Dimensions
-
- image width 275mm,
- image length 488mm
- Support
- paper has a vertical crease mark down the centre
- Inscription
-
- verso
- "August 8 1776"
- Object Type
- Outline only
-
- Collection
-
- (T08553)
- Catalogue Number
- FT064
- Description Sources
- Author's examination of the object
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White (1744–1825) of Exeter, 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 ca. 1915. It was acquired on 30 September 1935, lot 29, for £1 8s. 6d. (with FT055, FT146, FT564) by Paul Oppé (1878–1957). Oppé’s granddaughter sold it in 1996 with the rest of Paul Oppé’s collection to the present owner, the Tate Gallery, London (T08553).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853 - 1923)
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844)
- Adolph Paul Oppé (1878 - 1957)
- Tate
- James White (1744 - 1825)
- Exhibition History
- 76th Annual Exhibition of Water-Colour Drawings, Thomas Agnew & Sons, 1949, no. 5
- Francis Towne, Tate Gallery; Leeds City Art Gallery, 24 June 1997 - 4 January 1998, no. 5
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 148
Other entries in West Country Sketches, 1772–80
Francis Towne
A View of Exeter, taken between Exwick and Cowley Bridge
A View of Exeter, taken between Exwick and Cowley Bridge
Francis Towne
A View of Berry Pomeroy Castle within the Gateway
A View of Berry Pomeroy Castle within the Gateway
Francis Towne
A View going up from the Lake in Peamore Park
A View going up from the Lake in Peamore Park
Francis Towne
A View from the Hill above the Lake at Peamore
A View from the Hill above the Lake at Peamore
Francis Towne
A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
Francis Towne
A View of the Waterfall at Lidford in the County of Devon
A View of the Waterfall at Lidford in the County of Devon
Footnotes
- 1 'Benjamin Donn, A Map of the County of Devon, Devon and Cornwall Record Society and the University of Exeter: Exeter 1965, plate 6b
- 2 The alterations in both house and garden are visible in a print after Hubert Cornish: Great Fulford House, 1804 (West Country Studies Library, Exeter).
- 3 'Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p.41
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
Comment
Great Fulford, seat of the Fulfords since the twelfth century, is just outside Dunsford, around ten miles east of Exeter.1 The lake and surrounding plantation were created in the 1760s by Sir John Fulford (1736–1780), 1st Bt, whose nephew Baldwin inherited the estate and later remodelled the house.2 According to family tradition related by Wilcox,3 Baldwin destroyed all images of its earlier appearance, so any drawing or painting that Towne may have made as a result of this drawing would not have survived. Nonetheless, as the drawing is clearly one created to guide Towne in making a finished picture (for example, compare with FT055 of Ugbrooke), it is likely that such a picture was made.
Towne, evidently unsure of his perspective, has made the two sides of the square house appear flat. What is most noticeable in the drawing is that in 1776 he is already using tight, flat foliage in a style more characteristic of the large preparatory drawings made at the end of the decade (such as FT136, FT138).