- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Castle of Dinas
- Castle of Dinas (Banks of the Dee)
- North Wales: On the banks of the Dee
- Date
- ca. 1777/07/17
- Medium
- Pen and ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 241mm,
- image length 305mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist[?]
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “Castle of Dinas drawn on the spot [with an erased date]” and numbered “39”
- The Barton Place catalogue calls this drawing Castle of Dinas (Banks of the Dee) and Agnew’s Drawing Book calls it North Wales: On the Banks of the Dee
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT101
- Description Sources
- Paul Oppé records; Agnew’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 (BP121). On 1 November 1934 they sold it for £25 to Agnew’s (no.11622), where it was bought by Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase (1898–1974), whereafter it is untraced. It is perhaps the Banks of the Dee near Llangollen 1777, with the same dimensions as this drawing, which was sold at Christie’s on 7 March 1947, lot 100, to Gersheim for £50 8s. (alternatively FT100 or FT105).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Untraced
- [?] Gersheim [Sersheim?], 7 March 1947, GBP 50 8s
- [?] Christie's, London, London, 7 March 1947, lot 100
- Thomas Sherrer Ross Boase (1898 - 1974), 1 November 1934, GBP 25
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 1 November 1934, GBP 25, no.11622
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP121
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP121
- 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. 27, 28, 29 or 43 as 'Banks of the Dee'
- Bibliography
- Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 108
- Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, A Tour Through Monmouthshire and Wales Made in the Months of June and July 1774 and in the months of June, July and August 1777: Salisbury, 1781, p. 175
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
Paul Oppé’s note reads: “121. Practically same view [as FT100] spot date erased on back same size. Same crumbled trees only coloured here also uniform. On R hand[. . .]”1 On the basis of the Barton Place description of it as Banks of the Dee, this drawing is suggested as a possible 1805 exhibit of that title. As Oppé says that this drawing is practically the same view as FT100, it also qualifies as a possible 1805 exhibit.
The hilltop Castle of Dinas, famously depicted by Richard Wilson in his two pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1771, was evidently seen here from the road along the Dee, which leads into Llangollen, as Oppé says this drawing is practically the same view as FT100, which is inscribed “near Llangollen. July 17 1777 a view in the Road”. Wyndham took the same route:
This was probably drawn on 17 July 1777, as four of Towne’s Dee Valley views bear that date.