- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- The Palatine Hill
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 328mm,
- image length 473mm
- Support
- laid paper
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F.Towne. delt / Rome No.30”
- in brown ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No.30 / Palatine Mount, taken in the Campo Vacino [“March [. . .]th 1781” scratched out] from 12 till 4 O Clock / taken in the steps of the Temple of Antonius / Rome Francis Towne delt.”
- in brown ink
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
-
- (Nn,1.4)
- Catalogue Number
- FT200
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum records (image)
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.1.04).
- 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. 162 as Palatine Mount
- unidentified exhibition, British Museum, 1981
- 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. 201
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 125
Other entries in Rome Series, October 1780–July 1781
Francis Towne
Two Miles from Rome going out at the Porta Pia
Two Miles from Rome going out at the Porta Pia
Francis Towne
Part of the Ancient Roman Wall between Porta Salara and Porta Pinciana
Part of the Ancient Roman Wall between Porta Salara and Porta Pinciana
Francis Towne
Two Miles from Rome, going out at Porta Salara
Two Miles from Rome, going out at Porta Salara
Francis Towne
Near the Arco Scuro, looking into the Villa Borghese
Near the Arco Scuro, looking into the Villa Borghese
Francis Towne
A Sepulchre by the Road between Rome and the Ponte Nomentana
A Sepulchre by the Road between Rome and the Ponte Nomentana
Francis Towne
The Old Wall of Rome at the back of the Villa Medici
The Old Wall of Rome at the back of the Villa Medici
Francis Towne
St Maria Nuova with the Temple of Venus and Rome
St Maria Nuova with the Temple of Venus and Rome
Francis Towne
The Temple of Vesta and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis
The Temple of Vesta and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis
Francis Towne
Going out from the Porta Pia, looking towards the Sabine Mountains
Going out from the Porta Pia, looking towards the Sabine Mountains
Footnotes
- 1 T. Girtin and J. M. W. Turner after J. R. Cozens: Campo Vaccino, 1790s? (www.tate.org.uk).
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Comment
Towne’s drawing shows the area of the Forum (then called the Campo Vaccino—literally “field of cows”) below the Domus Tiberiana. Drawings of contemporary figures and incidents of everyday life are rare in Towne’s work, but standard in the works of Giovanni Volpato, Louis Ducros, and others; evidently Towne felt unable to exclude the cattle that gave the scene its name and much of its character. John “Warwick” Smith and John Robert Cozens also drew this scene.1
Figure 1.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, Rome: Buildings on the Palatine Hill, circa 1794–8
Digital image courtesy of Tate, D36434