- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Holnicote, Somerset, the Seat of Sir Thomas Acland
- Holnicote, near Minehead, Somerset
- Date
- 1785/10/03
- Medium
- Pen and grey ink, grey wash
- Dimensions
-
- image width 305mm,
- image length 485mm
- Support
- paper with vertical crease down the centre, watermark "PORTAL"
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “No.3 / Honicote Somersetshire / The seat of Sir Thomas Acland Bart. / drawn on the spot Octr. 3rd. 1785 / by / Francis Towne / Evening light / from the left hand”
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
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 granddaughter Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853–1923) inherited the drawing in 1915 and it is thereafter untraced until 1963, by which time it was in the collection of Sir John Witt (1907–1982), whose executors sold it at Sotheby’s on 19 February 1987, lot 74, for £2,400 to Agnew’s (no.2053), who bought it on behalf of a client. It was again sold at Sotheby’s on 15 March 1990, lot 64. In 2005 it was given by Nancy Richardson to the current owner, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (no.41776).
- Associated People & Organisations
- National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2005
- Nancy Richardson
- Sotheby's, London, London, 15 March 1990
lot 64 - Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 19 February 1987, GBP 2400, no.2053
Acquired on behalf of a client - Sotheby's, London, London, 19 February 1987
lot 74 - Sir John Witt (1907 - 1982)
- Emily Harriet Buckingham (1853 - 1923), 1915
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Exhibition History
- Annual Water Colour Exhibition 1926, The Judge's Lodgings, Winchester, 1926, no. 131
- The John Witt Collection, Part 11, English School, Courtauld Gallery, 1963, no. 58
- Bibliography
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 131
Other entries in Acland Estates, 1785–86
Holnicote, Somerset, the Seat of Sir Thomas Acland
A View taken at Killerton, the Seat of Sir Thomas Acland, Bt
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Comment
This is a preparatory drawing for an oil picture now owned by the National Trust (FT449). Holnicote was a seat of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland just west of Minehead, looking over the Bristol Channel.