- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- A View near Canon Teign in Devon
- Date
- 1772/09/26 - 1773
- Medium
- Pen and grey ink, grey and light brown washes
- Dimensions
-
- image width 308mm,
- image length 251mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, recto
- "Francis Towne delt. / A SCENE NEAR CANON-TEIGN / 1773"
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- "A View near Canon:teign in the County of Devon drawn on the spot September 26th 1772 by Francis Towne No.2"
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT031
- Description Sources
- Author's examination of the object
Provenance
The drawing was bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), on whose death it reverted to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844) and his successors. Merivale’s granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (no BP number was allocated). By April 1924 it was “in the possession of Miss Urmson 23 Leckford Road. Oxford”, presumably Barbara Edith Urmson (b.1886) (see also FT030). In 1962 Bertram Nowell Williams (b.1909 and still alive in 2009) bought the drawing “from a gallery in Liverpool” (letter, 6 May 2009, from his daughter, Angela Yule); he sold it at Christie’s on 6 November 1973, lot 210 (see also FT877), where it was bought by Wadsworth. It was again sold at Christie’s on 21 November 1978, lot 24, where it was bought for £1,500 by a private collector, who retained it in 2006. In 2009 it was on sale at Lowell Libson.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Christie's, London
- Lowell Libson
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844)
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945)
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928)
- Private Collection
- Barbara Edith Urmson (1886)
- James White (1744 - 1825)
- Bertram Nowell Williams (1909)
- Exhibition History
- [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 1 or 2 as 'Canon-teign, Devonshire'
- Bibliography
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 36
Other entries in West Country Sketches, 1772–80
A View of Exeter, taken between Exwick and Cowley Bridge
A View of Berry Pomeroy Castle within the Gateway
A View going up from the Lake in Peamore Park
A View from the Hill above the Lake at Peamore
A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
A View of the Waterfall at Lidford in the County of Devon
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Comment
This drawing is presented in a mount inscribed with the subject and date in the same way as a view of Oakhampton made around the same time (FT030). In its upright format directing the viewer’s eye upwards towards the rock it is similar to Richard Wilson’s view of Lydford waterfall, painted for Lord Courtenay ca. 1771–2, which Towne very probably knew (see Comment at FT029). In this drawing of Canon Teign, therefore, Towne may well be reflecting a new local taste for unclassicising views of local landmarks that Courtenay’s Wilson may have stimulated.
The writing shows Towne’s very neat hand in the early part of his career, similar to the hand in the landscape with horseman oil study (FT022).
Towne produced a second version of this drawing perhaps twenty or more years later (FT564), in an oval shape, and lacking the strong pen outline of the source drawing.