- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Naples
- Near Naples
- Date
- 1781/03
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour (with ink washes?), scratching out
- Dimensions
-
- image width 320mm,
- image length 468mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F.Towne / delt: 1781 / No11”
- in brown ink, save the year, which is in dark brown ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No11 / Naples / Drawn on the spot / by / Francis Towne March 1781 [“March 1781” over scratched-out inscription]”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
-
- (Nn,3.2)
- Catalogue Number
- FT238
- 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 1818 to the present owner, the British Museum (Nn.3.02).
- Associated People & Organisations
- British Museum
- James White (1744 - 1825)
- Exhibition History
- In the Shadow of Vesuvius, Accademia Italiana, London, 1990
- Francis Towne, Tate Gallery; Leeds City Art Gallery, 24 June 1997 - 4 January 1998, no. 23
- 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. 202
- Adrian Bury, 'Some Italian Views by Francis Towne', The Connoisseur, No. VLCII: London, 1938, p. 13
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, pp. 79, 127
- Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the 18th Century, Faber: London, 1973, p. 77
Other entries in Naples, March 1781
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
The drawing was made at or near Capodimonte. The viewpoint is very similar to that in FT230 and FT233. It has been extensively altered in the years following Towne’s Naples visit.
Towne’s trees at bottom right have been drawn to resemble a group of the Three Graces.