Inside the Colosseum

Description

Creator: Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)

Title(s)

Inside the Colosseum

Date: 1780/12/22

Medium: Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour

Dimensions

image width 318mm,
image length 471mm

Support: laid paper

Mount: mounted by the artist

Inscription

sheet, recto, lower left
“F.Towne delt / No21 / Rome 1780”
in brown ink

Inscription

artist's mount, verso
“No.21 / Inside the Coloseo. [“Decr 22nd. 1780” scratched out] / Rome Francis Towne delt. from 11 till 1 O Clock”
in brown ink

Object Type: Watercolour

Collection

(Nn,2.26)

Catalogue Number: FT191

Description Sources: Examination; Museum records (image)

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744–1825), who gave it in 1816 to the present owner, the British Museum, London (Nn.2.26).

Associated People & Organisations: British Museum; James White (1744 - 1825)

Exhibition History: [?] Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 164, 165, 166, 167 or 168 as 'Inside of the Coliseo; this edifice is of Travertina stone'; or 169 or 171 as 'Inside of the Coliseo'; Travels in Italy 1776-1783 based on the Memoirs of Thomas Jones, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, 1988, no. 40; Light, time, legacy: Francis Towne’s watercolours of Rome, British Museum, 2016

Bibliography: Laurence Binyon, Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists and Artists of Foreign Origin Working in Great Britain Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Trustees of the British Museum: London, 1907, p. 200; Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p.124; Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 64

Comment

This is an internal Colosseum view similar to FT186, but taken on a higher level and showing steps down, not up. Towne employs fairly ruddy colours, especially in brickwork on the left, typical of his earlier Roman drawings before 1781.

by Richard Stephens

Other entries in Rome Series, October 1780–July 1781

Francis Towne