- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Lake Bala
- The Lake of Bala
- Date
- 1777
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 299mm,
- image length 614mm
- Support
- three sheets with a vertical crease mark down the centre of the largest
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “No.7 / F.Towne / delt 1777”
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “A Copy of this Sr. Thomas Acland Bart / Ordered Decr 28. 1785 / No7 The Lake of Bala North Wales / drawn on the Spot by Francis Towne June 27. 1777. / Mounted Octr 21st. 1801”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
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 Misses Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP102). On 24 May 1921 they sold it (also 74, 86, 111, 260) to Agnew’s (no.9953) for £40 for onward sale the same day (for £350 with FT074, FT086, FT108, FT111, FT237, FT260, FT366, FT469, FT504) to the current owner, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Inv 88'21).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 24 May 1921, GBP 350 , Inv 88'21
Acquired with FT074, FT086, FT108, FT111, FT237, FT260, FT366, FT469, FT504 - Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 24 May 1921, GBP 40, no.9953
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP102
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP102
- 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. 44 as 'The Lake of Bala'
- unidentified exhibition, National Library of Wales, 1956, no. 36
- unidentified exhibition, Arts Council Welsh Committee, 1964
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 134
- Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 106, 107
- Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, Tate Publishing: London, 1997, p. 132
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
Footnotes
- 1 Wyndham 1781, p.183.
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Comment
Wyndham described Lake Bala, owned by Sir Watkins Williams Wynn, thus:
In the inscription Towne refers to a copy ordered in 1785 but dated 1788 (FT550), one of several Devon and North Wales views purchased from Towne by the Aclands.
It is very likely that much of the dark shading visible on foreground foliage and rocks was applied around 1801, when Towne mounted this drawing.