- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Buttermere
- Date
- 1786/08/22
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and brown ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 152mm,
- image length 472mm
- Support
- two sheets
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto
- on a hill: “Grey Rock”
- in pencil
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “No.38. Lake of Buttermere light from the right hand 12 O’Clock / August 22nd. 1786. / F.Towne”, and on the other sheet in pencil, “Light from the right hand 12 O’Clock / August 22nd. 1786.”
- in brown pen on the right hand (i.e. left sheet of the sketch)
- Part of
-
- Partially-disbound sketchbook sold by Judith Merivale to H. B. Milling of Squire Gallery
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT494
- Description Sources
- Examination (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 granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 within a partially disbound sketchbook containing FT455, FT462, FT470, FT471, FT472, FT475, FT476, FT477, FT478, FT480, FT494, FT495, FT496. In February 1945 Judith Merivale sold the book to H. B. Milling of Squire Gallery for £25. The drawing was owned by the Fine Art Society by early 1946, as on 21 or 23 January 1946 they sold it to Agnew’s (no.4403) for £64. Agnew’s sold it on 9 February 1948 for £65 to “Mrs Young” (perhaps Mrs E. M. Young but also possibly a pseudonym to disguise the real buyer’s identity), in whose family it remained in 2014.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Mrs E. M. Young, London, 9 February 1948, GBP 65
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, 21 January 1946, GBP 64, no.4403
- The Fine Art Society, London, London, 1946
- Horace Bernard Milling (1898 - 1954), February 1945, GBP 25
Acquired within a partially-disbound sketchbook containing FT455, FT462, FT470, FT471, FT472, FT475, FT476, FT477, FT478, FT480, FT495, FT496 - Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Private Collection
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
Footnotes
- 1 F. R. Hay after J. Farington, Buttermere and Chrommock Water, ca. 1815 (Wordsworth Trust).
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Comment
Buttermere is a small lake a few miles west of Borrowdale. This view, drawn on the looping road from Keswick that passes through Borrowdale, looks south from near Buttermere town. The four peaks are, from the left, Fleetwith Pike, Hay Stacks, High Crag, and High Stile. Joseph Farington used much the same point for his published view.1
Towne’s sketch has strong echoes of the Lake Geneva panoramas of 1781 (compare with FT833). In the 1786 sketchbook this was placed after a view of Coniston Water numbered 24 (FT480) and before another of Buttermere numbered 39, which was drawn one hour after the sketch catalogued here (FT495).