- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- On the Palatine Hill
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 314mm,
- image length 470mm
- Mount
- mounted by the artist
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower left
- “F.Towne delt / [. . .] No.27”
- in brown ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “No.27 / On the Palatine Mount, looking towards Mount Aventine. Febry 8h 1781 [over scratched-out “Febry 5th 1781”] / Rome Francis Towne delt. / Mrs. J. Fortescue. of Buckland House, Devonshire / had a Copy of this [“Janry 1786” scratched out]”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
-
- (Nn,1.1)
- Catalogue Number
- FT197
- Description Sources
- Author's examination of the object
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.1.1).
- 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. 174, 175, 176, 177 or 178 as 'On the Palatine Mount'
- 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. 125
Other entries in Rome Series, October 1780–July 1781
Francis Towne
Two Miles from Rome going out at the Porta Pia
Two Miles from Rome going out at the Porta Pia
Francis Towne
Part of the Ancient Roman Wall between Porta Salara and Porta Pinciana
Part of the Ancient Roman Wall between Porta Salara and Porta Pinciana
Francis Towne
Two Miles from Rome, going out at Porta Salara
Two Miles from Rome, going out at Porta Salara
Francis Towne
Near the Arco Scuro, looking into the Villa Borghese
Near the Arco Scuro, looking into the Villa Borghese
Francis Towne
A Sepulchre by the Road between Rome and the Ponte Nomentana
A Sepulchre by the Road between Rome and the Ponte Nomentana
Francis Towne
The Old Wall of Rome at the back of the Villa Medici
The Old Wall of Rome at the back of the Villa Medici
Francis Towne
St Maria Nuova with the Temple of Venus and Rome
St Maria Nuova with the Temple of Venus and Rome
Francis Towne
The Temple of Vesta and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis
The Temple of Vesta and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis
Francis Towne
Going out from the Porta Pia, looking towards the Sabine Mountains
Going out from the Porta Pia, looking towards the Sabine Mountains
Footnotes
- 1 Richard Wilson, View on the Palatine Hill, early 1750s (Ford 1951).
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Comment
This is a view looking south-west from Mount Palatine across the Circus Maximus to Mount Aventine. The foreground ruins are probably the southern range of the Domus Augusta. The distant hilltop buildings are the churches of the Aventine, Santa Sabina and Sant’Alessio. Towne made a copy of this drawing dated 1786 (FT426), although probably not the one for Mrs Fortescue of Buckland House, as it was owned until 1952 by a Mrs Llewellyn, who was a descendant of Thomas Snow (1748–1832). Mrs Fortescue’s copy, supposing that it is not FT426, is not known.
A view from near the spot that Towne used, and showing the ruin that occupies Towne’s left foreground, was made by Richard Wilson for the Earl of Dartmouth.1