Description
Creator
Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
Title(s)
  • Montreux
Date
1781/09/12
Medium
Pencil, pen and brown ink
Dimensions
  • image width 254mm,
  • image length 381mm
Inscription
  • recto
  • various colour indications
Inscription
  • sheet, verso
  • numbered “4”, dated 12 September 1781, and identified as Montreux
Object Type
Outline only

Catalogue Number
FT377
Description Sources
Paul Oppé notes; Barton Place catalogue

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 granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP82), whereafter it is untraced.

Associated People & Organisations

Untraced
Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP82
Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP82
John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816

Comment

Montreux is a town on the edge of Lake Geneva, very near to Vevey. Oppé’s note reads: “Same paper [as FT375] no wash. Mill. Light, shadow, thatch slab. Rock white wet[?] stone etc written in same ink. Once over pencil. Brown ink.”1

John White Abbott made copies of two of Towne’s drawings of Montreux (FT833b and FT833c); however, as no images of them are known, it is unclear if the 12 September 1781 sketch here was a source for either.

by Richard Stephens

Footnotes

  1. 1 Paul Oppé records: notes, ca. 1915.

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