- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
- Date
- No date
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, grey wash
- Dimensions
-
- image width 273mm,
- image length 483mm
- Support
- paper with a vertical crease down its centre, watermarked "J WHATMAN" and cut down at its top edge
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT138
- Description Sources
- Author's examination of the object
Provenance
Descended in the family of John White Abbott until sold at Taylors in Honiton on 14 October 1993, lot 275, where it was bought for £1,100 by a private collector. In 2005 it was sold by John Spink (listed at £37,500).
- Associated People & Organisations
- John White Abbott (1763 - 1851)
- Private Collection
- John Spink
- Taylor's, Honiton
- Exhibition History
- Francis Towne and his Friends, John Spink at Colnaghi, 2005, no. 1
- Bibliography
- Paul Oppé, 'John White Abbott', Walpole Society Journal: London, 1925, p. 76 (as by John White Abbott)
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 50
Other entries in West Country Sketches, 1772–80
Francis Towne
A View of Exeter, taken between Exwick and Cowley Bridge
A View of Exeter, taken between Exwick and Cowley Bridge
Francis Towne
A View of Berry Pomeroy Castle within the Gateway
A View of Berry Pomeroy Castle within the Gateway
Francis Towne
A View going up from the Lake in Peamore Park
A View going up from the Lake in Peamore Park
Francis Towne
A View from the Hill above the Lake at Peamore
A View from the Hill above the Lake at Peamore
Francis Towne
A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
A View near Exwell, looking towards Topsham
Francis Towne
A View of the Waterfall at Lidford in the County of Devon
A View of the Waterfall at Lidford in the County of Devon
Footnotes
- 1 Oppé 1925, p.76.
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Comment
This drawing is a view from the grounds of Powderham just to the left of the Belvedere, looking up and across the Exe estuary. Topsham is visible on the far bank. Exwell Hill is a prominence a few hundred yards north of Powderham, from which Towne probably made the view.
Oppé saw this drawing in the White Abbott collection, where he called it Mouth of the Exe, “one of John White Abbott’s rather later monochrome drawings of Devonshire. . . . The medium encourages Abbott to a greater boldness of contrast and brings him nearer again to Towne’s larger conception as well as to his mature execution.”1 Oppé was unaware of FT137, for which (as Wilcox has observed) this drawing is clearly a preparatory study, described by Towne as A View taken near Exwell looking towards Topsham. There must be a section of the drawing missing, on which Towne based the left area of FT137.