- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Exmouth Beach
- Cliffs and Sea near Exmouth
- Date
- ca. 1790 - 1800
- Medium
- Pen and ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 231mm,
- image length 372mm
- Support
- two sheets of paper
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F.Towne”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
-
- (1961.5)
- Catalogue Number
- FT578
- Description Sources
- Museum records (image)
Provenance
Untraced until exhibited in 1956 at the Leger Galleries, where it was bought in 1961 (no.768576) by the present owner, Bolton Art Gallery (1961.5). Possibly this is the “Exmouth” sold by the Fine Art Society on 2 February 1946 to P. B. H.[? or A.] Lod for £63. As the rump of Judith Merivale’s collection was sold off posthumously in 1945/46, that may well be where this drawing came from.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Bolton, 1961.5
- Leger Galleries, London, 1961, no.768576
- [?] Lod, P B H/A, 2 February 1946, GBP 63
- [?] The Fine Art Society, London, London, 2 February 1946
- [?] Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), 1946
- Exhibition History
- [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 9 as 'Cliffs and Sea near Exmouth'
- [?] Autumn Exhibition of Early English Water-Colours and Drawings (2nd ed), Fine Art Society, 1946, no. 124 as 'Exmouth'
- unidentified exhibition, Durham Museums, 1984
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 27
Other entries in Exeter and the Exe, 1791–99
Francis Towne
Scene in the City of Exeter between the Quaygate and Westgate
Scene in the City of Exeter between the Quaygate and Westgate
Francis Towne
A Lane in the Village of Heavitree, near Exeter
A Lane in the Village of Heavitree, near Exeter
Footnotes
- 1 Listener, 27 December 1956.
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
Leger Galleries records suggest this is a study of Shakespeare Cliff. On grounds of style, it dates from ca. 1790 to ca. 1800. It may be associated with the only other known Exmouth work, which is dated 1 September 1794 (FT579), or perhaps with slightly later views on the Exe estuary such as at Topsham in 1799 (FT603) and at Cockwood (FT631).
A brief review of the 1956 exhibition at Leger Galleries was published in the Listener: “An exhibition of early English watercolours at the Leger Galleries is worth a visit if only for the sake of the two Cotmans and the beach scene by Francis Towne.”1