- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- The Tarpeian Rock
- Date
- 1781/07/03
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour with gum
- Dimensions
-
- image width 407mm,
- image length 470mm
- Support
- two sheets, the larger watermarked "WHATMAN"
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “F.Towne delt / Rome No.48. / 1781”
- on the smaller sheet
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso, lower right
- “F Towne delt.”
- on the larger sheet
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No.43 / Tarpein Rock 1781 [the year in dark brown ink, over scratched-out “July 3rd, 1781”] / Rome Francis Towne. delt”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
-
- (Nn,1.16)
- Catalogue Number
- FT213
- 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 1816 to the present owner, the British Museum, London (Nn.1.16).
- 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. 182 as 'Tarpeian Rock'
- 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. 126
- Henri Lemaitre, Le Paysage Anglais a l'Aquarelle 1760-1951, Bordas: Paris, 1955, p. 158
- Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 111
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
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Comment
The Tarpeian Rock, at the southern corner of the Capitoline Hill, was the place from where convicts were thrown to their death in ancient Rome. However, the scene was less threatening than its history might suggest. Miss Berry, who visited in 1784, commented: “I believe one might almost be thrown with impunity, the lower part is so much raised and the upper part so much sunk. It is all covered with mean houses, so that there is no particular spot to which one can address one’s veneration.”1 Towne has made the Tarpeian Rock look more dramatic than it actually was, partly by including tiny figures to distort the scale, and partly by the addition of the small strip of plummeting foreground at the foot of his drawing. As Towne had already signed the larger sheet, he may not have initially intended to include the small lower portion, but added it to give depth at some later point.
Another drawing of the Tarpeian Rock, probably the work of a pupil of Richard Wilson, has much in common with Towne’s drawing but follows Miss Berry’s impression of the site as having lost its danger and height.2
Some of Towne’s washes on the building in the left mid-ground have run.