- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- The West Front of Tintern Abbey
- Tintern Abbey
- Date
- 1777/07/25
- Medium
- Pen and grey ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 290mm,
- image length 370mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “F.Towne delt. / 1777 No.49”
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “the West Front of Tintern Abbey. Drawn on the Spot / July 25th 1777”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “1777”
- recorded as inscribed, signed, and dated
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT112
- Description Sources
- Sotheby’s records; Christie’s records (image)
Provenance
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it passed to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s grandson George Montagu Merivale (b.1855) of Sydney, Australia, inherited the drawing and it descended through the family of his daughter Angel Merivale (b.1884) until it was offered for sale by Mrs R. Madoc at Sotheby’s on 15 July 1976, lot 40b, and at Christie’s on 20 March 1979, lot 136, where it seems to have been left unsold, as it was sold at Lawrence of Crewkerne on 22 May 1980, lot 84, for £1,400. It was sold at Christie’s on 1 July 2013, lot 75, for £18,750 to the current owner, Chepstow Museum and Art Gallery.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Chepstow Chepstow Museum and Art Gallery, Gwent, Monmouthshire, 1 July 2013, GBP 18750
- Christie's, London, London, 1 July 2013, lot 75
- Private Collection, 22 May 1980, GBP 1400
- Lawrence of Crewkerne, Crewkerne, 20 May 1980, lot 84
- Christie's, London, London, 20 March 1979, lot 136
- Sotheby's, London, London, 15 July 1976, lot 40b
Apparently unsold - R. Madoc
- Angel Merivale (1884 - ?)
- George Montagu Merivale (1855 - ?), Sydney
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
Other entries in Tour of Wales, 1777
View of a Mountain, Perhaps near Aberddwlas
A View near Dolgelly with Part of Cader Idris
A View of the Salmon Leap from Pont Aberglaslyn
The West Front of Tintern Abbey
Chepstow Chepstow Museum and Art Gallery
The Ruins of the Great Room in Ludlow Castle, Shopshire, where Milton’s Comus was Performed
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Comment
Tintern Abbey is halfway between Monmouth and Chepstow in the Wye valley. The popularity of both ruin and valley was much increased by William Gilpin’s book, Observations on the River Wye and Several Parts of South Wales &c relative chiefly to picturesque beauty, made in the Summer of the Year 1770, published in 1782.