Inside the Colosseum

Description

Creator: Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)

Title(s)

Inside the Colosseum

Date: 1781

Medium: Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour

Dimensions

image width 312mm,
image length 469mm

Support: laid paper with a vertical crease down its centre

Mount: mounted by the artist

Inscription

sheet, recto, lower left
“F.Towne delt / Rome. No.22 / 1781”
in brown ink

Inscription

artist's mount, verso
“No.22. / Inside the Coloseo [“1781” scratched out] / Rome, Francis Towne. delt.”

Object Type: Watercolour

Collection

(Nn,2.27)

Catalogue Number: FT192

Description Sources: Author's examination of the object

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), who gave it in 1816 to the present owner, the British Museum, London (Nn.2.26).

Associated People & Organisations: British Museum; James White (1744 - 1825)

Exhibition History: [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 164, 165, 166, 167 or 168 as 'Inside of the Coliseo; this edifice is of Travertina stone'; or 169 or 171 as 'Inside of the Coliseo'; Light, time, legacy: Francis Towne’s watercolours of Rome, British Museum, 2016

Bibliography: Laurence Binyon, Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists and Artists of Foreign Origin Working in Great Britain Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum: London, 1907, p. 200; Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, pp. 75, 125

Comment

This is the classic interior view of the Colosseum, taken within the outer arcade on the first-floor level. The hole in the roof gave the ruin possibilities for artists to make top-lit views in the manner of Piranesi. Many artists of Towne’s generation were attracted to this and nearby spots within the Colosseum, including Jean Grandjean, Hubert Robert, John “Warwick” Smith, and Joseph Wright of Derby.¹

by Richard Stephens

Footnotes

1 For an example by Joseph Wright of Derby, ca. 1773–75, see Egerton 1990.

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Provenance

Comment

Other entries in Rome Series, October 1780–July 1781