Provenance

Bequeathed by Francis Towne 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 sketchbook containing FT689 to FT714, much or all of which by 1963 was owned by Mr and Mrs Sutton of New Zealand. This drawing was not among the seventeen they sold to the Fine Art Society in 1963, but it must have appeared on the London art market in the 1960s or 1970s, as before 1978 it was owned by Joseph Hawksley Elliott of Sheffield (1884 - 1978), whose daughter sold it at Christie’s on 14 March 1978, lot 91, for £1,300 to Leger Galleries, whereafter it is untraced.