- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- A View of Glastonbury Abbey
- Glastonbury Abbey
- Date
- 1777
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 290mm,
- image length 485mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F.Towne / delt. 1777”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “A View of Glastonbury Abbey / drawn by Francis Towne / 1777”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT117
- Description Sources
- Sotheby'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 at Christie’s on 20 March 1979, lot 136 or 135, where it seems to have been left unsold, as it was sold at Lawrence of Crewkerne on 22 May 1980, lot 83, for £1,600. The drawing was again offered for sale at Sotheby’s on 11 July 1990, lot 60, whereafter it is untraced.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Untraced
- Sotheby's, London, London, 11 July 1990, lot 60
- Private Collection, 22 June 1980, GBP 1600
- Lawrence of Crewkerne, Crewkerne, 22 May 1980, lot 83
- Christie's, London, London, 20 March 1979, lot 136 or 135
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
This is a view of the Lady Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey. An exterior view of Glastonbury Abbey (FT118) is dated 30 July 1777, which is probably also the date of this drawing.
Figure 1.
Unknown Photographer, Lady Chapel (Chapel of St Mary), Glastonbury Abbey, Glastonbury, Somerset, England, photographic print
Digital image courtesy of Courtauld Institute of Art