- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Lake Windermere from near Low Wood
- Date
- 1786/08/09
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and brown and grey inks, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 156mm,
- image length 470mm
- Support
- paper watermarked “J WHATMAN”, measuring 322 x 630 mm, and with several pin holes (three at the corners and two some way off)
- Mount
- two sheets mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto
- “No13 / F.Towne / delt. 1786”
- in black ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso, upper left
- “No.13 / afternoon light from the right hand”, and top centre, “The lake of Windermere taken from near Low Wood / August ye 9th. 1786 by / Francis Towne”
- all in black ink; also “Leicester Square / London / 1790” in brown ink
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- FT468
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum 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 granddaughter Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945) of Oxford gave it to the father of Dr Walter Herman Hodgson Merivale (ca. 1918–1971). Dr Merivale’s father was probably Judith Merivale’s nephew Herman Walter Merivale (b.1898), who, according to museum records, owned it before Paul Mellon. It was presumably therefore Dr Merivale’s wife Josephine who was the Mrs Merivale who sold the drawing on 17 February 1961 to Agnew’s (no.1130) with FT458, FT481, FT512, FT581. On 8 March 1961 Agnew’s sold it for £700 to Paul Mellon (1907–1999), who gave it to the current owner, the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (B.1975.4.1878; gift to Yale, December 1975).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, December 1975, B.1975.4.1878
- Mr Paul Mellon (1907 - 1999), 17 February 1961, GBP 700
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 17 February 1961, no.1130
- [?] Josephine Merivale
Sold by 'Mrs Merivale' to Agnew's (no.1128) with FT568, FT481, FT512, FT581 - [?] Dr Walter Herman Hodgson Merivale (ca. 1918 - 1971)
- [?] Herman Walter Merivale (1898)
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915
- 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. 81 or 82 as 'Windermere near Low-Wood'
- Painting in England 1700-1850, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1963, no. 72
- A Loan Exhibition of English Drawings and Watercolours from the collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon of Upperville, Virginia, Colnaghi, 1964, no. 54
- Selected Paintings, Drawings and Books, Yale Center for British Art, 1977, no. 46
- Selected Watercolors, Yale Center for British Art, 1980
- Fairest Isle, Yale Center for British Art, 1989, no. 41
- Glorious Nature: British Landscape Painting 1750-1850, Denver Art Museum, 1993, no. 26
- Francis Towne, Tate Gallery; Leeds City Art Gallery, 24 June 1997 - 4 January 1998, no. 49
- The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century, Yale Center for British Art, 2001, no. 53
- English Drawings and Watercoours, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1965, no. 54
- Bibliography
- Malcolm Andrews, The Search for the Picturesque, Scolar: Aldershot, 1989, p. 157
Other entries in Lake District, 1786
Francis Towne
A View at Ambleside, near Sir Michael Fleming’s on the Road to Keswick
A View at Ambleside, near Sir Michael Fleming’s on the Road to Keswick
Francis Towne
A View taken at Ambleside at the Head of Lake Windermere
A View taken at Ambleside at the Head of Lake Windermere
Francis Towne
Looking from Ambleside across Lake Windermere
Looking from Ambleside across Lake Windermere
Francis Towne
A View near the Turnpike on the Way from Low Wood to Ambleside
A View near the Turnpike on the Way from Low Wood to Ambleside
Francis Towne
Looking to the Mountains over the Head of Buttermere
Looking to the Mountains over the Head of Buttermere
Francis Towne
A View at Low Wood, looking across the Head of Lake Windermere
A View at Low Wood, looking across the Head of Lake Windermere
Francis Towne
Raven Crag and Part of Thirlmere
Raven Crag and Part of Thirlmere
Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam Museum
Francis Towne
St John’s in the Vale, looking towards Grasmere
St John’s in the Vale, looking towards Grasmere
Francis Towne
St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
Francis Towne
A View in St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
A View in St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
Francis Towne
On the Side of Lake Windermere, near the Turnpike
On the Side of Lake Windermere, near the Turnpike
Francis Towne
A View of Derwent Water looking towards Lodore Falls
A View of Derwent Water looking towards Lodore Falls
Francis Towne
A View from the Cascade in the Groves at Ambleside
A View from the Cascade in the Groves at Ambleside
Francis Towne
At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
Francis Towne
A View of Rydal Water looking towards Rydal Hall
A View of Rydal Water looking towards Rydal Hall
Francis Towne
Elter Force, near Ambleside
Elter Force, near Ambleside
National Gallery National Gallery of Victoria
Footnotes
- 1 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1996.501).
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Comment
Low Wood, around a mile south of Ambleside on the east bank of Lake Windermere, was a popular spot from which to view the lake. For this drawing Towne was standing on the beach at Holme Crag and looking south; the inn, more prominent in a sketch drawn a week later (FT482), is visible on the shore, at the centre of the left sheet. A sketch made by Peter Rashleigh (1746–1836) in 1780 shows exactly the same scene as Towne’s drawing.1 In this work Towne has elongated the mid-ground shore, making the inn and other features seem very distant from the viewer, while at the same time raising the height of the left- and right-hand hills. In the centre of the image Towne has also introduced an entirely fictional hill to give a distant point on which the viewer’s eye can focus amid an otherwise bare horizon. The warm brown bank of trees at the left of the drawing contrasts with the cooler blue/green of the hills on the right. There is a hint of yellow above the trees on the left.
Towne also drew FT467 during the morning of 9 August.
In the summer of 1786, the year of Gilpin's publication of his tour of the Lakes, Francis Towne undertook his own tour with two friends, one of whom was the first owner of this watercolor of Windermere. In a two week period they visited most of the lakes, and Towne filled two sketchbooks with drawings. Rather than consider these drawings as preliminary for other finished watercolors, Towne chose to work up the sketchbook pages themselves with watercolor and pen and ink outlines, extract the pages from the sketch book, and mount them as finished drawings (the date of 1790 on the back of the mount indicates the year Towne mounted the drawing). Although the watercolors have a carefully considered, even stylized appearance, the Towne scholar Timothy Wilcox maintains that, by retaining the format of the sketchbook page and by adding the insistent pen outlines, Towne was drawing attention to their origins as sketches done on the spot.