- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Borrowdale
- Date
- ca. 1786/08
- Medium
- Pencil (?), pen and brown ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 95mm,
- image length 155mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “No 27[?]”
- in dark ink, indistinctly (though the paper)
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “Burrow Dale”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- FT500
- Description Sources
- Leger Galleries records; 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 granddaughter Mary Ann “Molly” Loveband (b.1865, alive in 1951) inherited the drawing in 1915 and her daughter Joyce Merivale Loveband (b.1895, alive in 1981) sold it at Sotheby’s on 16 July 1981, lot 93, for £3,400 to Leger Galleries, where it was bought by Dorothy Scharf (d.2004), who bequeathed it to the current owner, the Courtauld Institute of Art.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Courtauld Gallery, London, London, 2004, D.2007.DS.40
- Dorothy Scharf ( - 2004)
- Leger Galleries, London, 16 July 1981, GBP 3400
- Sotheby's, London, London, 16 July 1981, lot 93
- Joyce Merivale Loveband (1895)
- Mary Ann Loveband (1865 - alive in 1951), 1915
- 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. 56 as 'Burrowdale', or 58 or (just possibly) 59 as 'The Grange at the head of Keswick Lake'
- Three Exeter Artists of the Eighteenth Century: Francis Hayman RA, Francis Towne, John White Abbott, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, 1951, no. 55
- Exhibition of English Watercolours, Leger Galleries, 1981, no. 6
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 150 (as one of Two Swiss Scenes)
Other entries in Lake District, 1786
Francis Towne
A View at Ambleside, near Sir Michael Fleming’s on the Road to Keswick
A View at Ambleside, near Sir Michael Fleming’s on the Road to Keswick
Francis Towne
A View taken at Ambleside at the Head of Lake Windermere
A View taken at Ambleside at the Head of Lake Windermere
Francis Towne
Looking from Ambleside across Lake Windermere
Looking from Ambleside across Lake Windermere
Francis Towne
A View near the Turnpike on the Way from Low Wood to Ambleside
A View near the Turnpike on the Way from Low Wood to Ambleside
Francis Towne
Looking to the Mountains over the Head of Buttermere
Looking to the Mountains over the Head of Buttermere
Francis Towne
A View at Low Wood, looking across the Head of Lake Windermere
A View at Low Wood, looking across the Head of Lake Windermere
Francis Towne
Raven Crag and Part of Thirlmere
Raven Crag and Part of Thirlmere
Fitzwilliam Fitzwilliam Museum
Francis Towne
St John’s in the Vale, looking towards Grasmere
St John’s in the Vale, looking towards Grasmere
Francis Towne
St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
Francis Towne
A View in St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
A View in St John’s in the Vale looking towards Keswick
Francis Towne
On the Side of Lake Windermere, near the Turnpike
On the Side of Lake Windermere, near the Turnpike
Francis Towne
A View of Derwent Water looking towards Lodore Falls
A View of Derwent Water looking towards Lodore Falls
Francis Towne
A View from the Cascade in the Groves at Ambleside
A View from the Cascade in the Groves at Ambleside
Francis Towne
At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
At Ambleside coming from the Cascade in the Groves
Francis Towne
A View of Rydal Water looking towards Rydal Hall
A View of Rydal Water looking towards Rydal Hall
Francis Towne
Elter Force, near Ambleside
Elter Force, near Ambleside
National Gallery National Gallery of Victoria
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Comment
In the Leger catalogue of 1981 the mountain in the background is identified as part of the southern face of Blencathra, although in 2006 the Dove Cottage curator considered it more likely to be the northern part of Glaramara, seen looking south from the Borrowdale valley. This would make sense of Towne’s inscription, as Blencathra is some distance from Borrowdale. Its general compositional resemblance to a view of Grange (FT502) also makes it an outside candidate for one of the two views of Grange that Towne exhibited in 1805 (see also FT502). Conceivably, too, it was the Grange, Borrowdale 1786 exhibited at Agnew’s in 1935 (no.107), although the Merivale provenance as late as 1981 makes this unlikely.