Description
Creator
Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
Title(s)
  • A Study from the Lake at Peamore
Date
ca. 1790
Medium
Watercolour
Dimensions
  • image width 146mm,
  • image length 191mm
Mount
mounted by the artist
Inscription
  • sheet, recto, lower left
  • “F.Towne / delt”

Inscription
  • artist's mount, verso
  • “This drawing was done on the spot from the Lake at Peamore near Exeter”
Object Type
Watercolour

Catalogue Number
FT025
Description Sources
Christie's records (image)

Provenance

According to the Christie’s catalogue of 1976, this drawing has a Merivale provenance, in which case it would have been 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. One or more of Merivale’s grandchildren inherited the drawing in May 1915, although it is not distinguishable among the various records of the drawings. By 1949 the drawing had been acquired by Walker’s Galleries, from whom in June 1949 Leonard Duke (1889–1971; no.D1835) bought it for £35, selling it on 21 September 1956 for £40 to Spink & Son, where it was purchased on 20 May 1957 for £80 by a UK private collector. It is untraced thereafter apart from its sale at Christie’s on 2 March 1976, lot 91, for £1,500 to White.

Associated People & Organisations

Untraced
Private Collection, 2 March 1976, GBP 1500
Sold to “White”
Christie's, London, London, 2 March 1976, lot 91
Spink & Son, London, London, 20 May 1957, GBP 80
Leonard Duke (1889 - 1971), London, June 1949, GBP 35, no.D1835
Walker's Galleries, London, 1949
John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
Exhibition History
[?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 12, 13 or 14, as 'By the ditto [Quarry] in ditto [Peamore Park]'
unidentified exhibition, Walker's Galleries, 1949, no. 151
L. G. Duke Collection, Midlands Federation of Museums and Galleries, 1951
L. G. Duke Collection, Art Exhibition Bureau, 1952

Comment

Leonard Duke noted of his drawing: “A most interesting blue drawing, with none of Towne’s wiry pen line. Towne may have seen Cotman’s Greta drawings of 1805.”1 On stylistic grounds this drawing seems to date from the 1790s and may be compared with a Werrington study dated 1796 (FT588).

by Richard Stephens

Footnotes

  1. 1 L. G. Duke catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum.

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