- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Moorland Landscape
- Date
- ca. 1774 - 1777
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black and brown inks, grey wash
- Dimensions
-
- image width 303mm,
- image length 488mm
- Support
- paper watermarked with “I.Villedary”
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- colour notes in pencil
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- FT041
- Description Sources
- Author's examination of the object
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it reverted 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 (BP217) and sold it to Squire Gallery in April 1935 for £7 7s., where that same month it was bought by Leonard Duke (D324) for £9. He sold it to Colnaghi in or before 1944, when it was given by Kent Kingdon Trustees to the present owner, the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter (15/1944.1).
- Associated People & Organisations
- P&D Colnaghi & Co, London
- Leonard Duke (1889 - 1971)
- Kent Kingdon Trust
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844)
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945)
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928)
- Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery
- Squire Gallery
- James White (1744 - 1825)
- Exhibition History
- Loan Exhibition: English Watercolours and Drawings from Local Collections, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1949, no. 10
- Three Exeter Artists of the Eighteenth Century: Francis Hayman RA, Francis Towne, John White Abbott, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1951, no. 78
- Treasures of the Exeter Museums: Centenary Exhibition, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1969, no. 124
- Paintings and Drawings by Francis Towne and John White Abbott in the collection of Exeter Museums and Art Gallery, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1971, no. 13
- Francis Towne & John White Abbott: Paintings and Watercolours from the Exeter Museums and Art Gallery, Marble Hill House, 1973, no. 13
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 133
- Jane C. Baker, Catalogue of Oil Paintings, Watercolours, Drawings and Sculpture, Exeter Museums: Exeter, 1978, p. 118
Other entries in West Country Sketches, 1772–80
A View of Exeter, taken between Exwick and Cowley Bridge
A View of Berry Pomeroy Castle within the Gateway
A View going up from the Lake in Peamore Park
A View from the Hill above the Lake at Peamore
A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
A View of the Waterfall at Lidford in the County of Devon
Footnotes
- 1 British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings.
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
On the basis of style this is a drawing created prior to the Welsh tour of 1777. The foreground rocks are drawn and washed in much the same way as in a 1777 drawing of Pistyll Rhaeadr (FT071), and the watermark is also associated with early drawings and Wales (for example FT084, FT087). The location is not known although it is probably in Devon and, if so, it may depict the area around Tor Bay (for comparison see FT882). Baker suggests that it is of Dartmeet. In his manuscript catalogue Duke suggested that it was a Welsh view,1 but in the Barton Place catalogue Paul Oppé called it “North Devon Landscape”. It could be either.