- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- At Low Wood looking across Lake Windermere
- Windermere, Near Low-Wood
- Lake and Mountain Scene
- Date
- ca. 1786/08
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 266mm,
- image length 381mm
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT524
- Description Sources
- Examination; Christie’s records
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 granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP83). At an unknown date in or prior to 1938 it was sold to Squire Gallery for £8. By 1951 it was owned by Cecil Austin Wakeford (1899/1900–1973), who probably bought it at Squire Gallery in 1939, judging by information on the Spink & Son stock card. On 14 October 1976 it was bought by Spink & Son (it is not clear from whom), and on 25 April 1977 they sold it for £1,666 to “a UK art dealer”—presumably the Manning Gallery, where it was bought in May 1977 for £3,500 by John Byng Kenrick (1911–2002), whose heirs sold it at Christie’s on 5 June 2003, lot 81, for £7,170 including fees, whereafter it is untraced.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Untraced
- Private Collection, 5 June 2003, GBP 7170
- Christie's, London, London, 5 June 2003, lot 81
- John Byng Kenrick (1911 - 2002), May 1977, GBP 3500
- [?] Manning Gallery, 25 April 1977, GBP 1666
- Spink & Son, London, London, 14 October 1976
- Cecil Austin Wakeford, 1951
- Squire Gallery, GBP 8
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP83
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP83
- 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. 81 or 82 as 'Windermere, Near Low-Wood'
- Three Exeter Artists of the Eighteenth Century: Francis Hayman RA, Francis Towne, John White Abbott, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1951, no. 45
Other entries in Lake District, 1786
A View at Ambleside, near Sir Michael Fleming’s on the Road to Keswick
A View taken at Ambleside at the Head of Lake Windermere
Looking from Ambleside across Lake Windermere
A View near the Turnpike on the Way from Low Wood to Ambleside
Looking to the Mountains over the Head of Buttermere
A View at Low Wood, looking across the Head of Lake Windermere
Raven Crag and Part of Thirlmere
Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam Museum
St John’s in the Vale, looking towards Grasmere
St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
A View in St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
On the Side of Lake Windermere, near the Turnpike
A View of Derwent Water looking towards Lodore Falls
A View from the Cascade in the Groves at Ambleside
At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
A View of Rydal Water looking towards Rydal Hall
Elter Force, near Ambleside
National Gallery National Gallery of Victoria
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
Comment
This is a view at Low Wood looking west over Windermere, with the Langdale Pikes in the centre-right distance, just to the right of Lingmoor Fell in the centre of the image. The view can be compared with FT484; in the present work Towne is slightly further north, on the southern outskirts of the town.
This drawing is tentatively suggested for the 1805 exhibition, as its subject matches exhibits 81 and 82 so well, and the drawing is highly coloured in the way that many exhibits were. The absence of a mount, however, argues against this.
The drawing was recorded in the Barton Place catalogue among Swiss views, although given no title, and was identified as a Low Wood view as recently as 2003.