Description
Creator
Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
Title(s)
  • The Temple of Minerva Medica
Date
1781/07/03
Medium
Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour with gum
Dimensions
  • image width 315mm,
  • image length 372mm
Support
paper watermarked with a design of a fleur de lis within two circles, and with a horizontal crease along the upper part of the paper
Mount
mounted by the artist
Inscription
  • artist's mount, recto, lower left
  • “No46 / F Towne / delt. 1781”
Inscription
  • artist's mount, verso
  • “No.46 Rome / Evening sun from the right hand / Temple of Minverva Moelica / [“July 3rd. 1781” scratched out] drawn on the Spot / Francis Towne”
Object Type
Watercolour

Collection
Catalogue Number
FT216
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.1.19).

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. 179 as 'Temple of Minerva Medica'
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
Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 113
Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 126

Comment

The so-called Temple of Minerva Medica, actually a nymphaeum, is in the south-east corner of Rome between Porta S. Lorenzo and Porta Maggiore.

by Richard Stephens

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