- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Pistyll Rhaeadr
- Pistyll y Rhaider
- Date
- 1777
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and black ink, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 302mm,
- image length 376mm
- Support
- two sheets of paper watermarked Fleur-de-lis
- Mount
- mounted by the artist on paper measuring 392 x 465mm
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “F.Towne / delt 1777 / No.6”
- in dark brown ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso, upper left
- “No.6”, and top centre, “Pistyll y Rhaiadr, / The stream divides the Countys of Denbighshire, & Montgomery, & / the Lordships of Powis, & Chirk, the perpendicular height from which it falls is 240 feet / Drawn [erased space where date would have been] 1777 by Francis Towne.”
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- FT071
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum records
Provenance
According to Bury, the drawing was from a Merivale source, then in the collection of Helen Alice Dorothy Barlow (1887/1888–1975; see also 596), before its acquisition by Mr and Mrs William Wycliffe Spooner by 1962 (William Spooner’s dates are 1882–1967, Mrs Spooner outlived him). It was acquired on 17 December 1976 from Somerville & Simpson Ltd, London, for $4,000 by Paul Mellon (1907–1999), who gave it to the current owner, the Yale Center for British Art (B1981.25.2703; gift to Yale, December 1981).
- Associated People & Organisations
- Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, December 1981, B1981.25.2703
- Mr Paul Mellon (1907 - 1999), London, 17 December 1976, USD 4000
- Somerville & Simpson Ltd, London, 17 December 1976
- William Wycliffe Spooner (1882 - 1967), 1962
- Helen Alice Dorothy Barlow (1887/88 - 1975)
- [?] John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
According to Bury the drawing was from a Merivale source
- Exhibition History
- Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 49 as 'Pistyll y Rhaider'
- Francis Towne, Tate Gallery; Leeds City Art Gallery, 24 June 1997 - 4 January 1998, no. 6
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 149
- Luke Herrmann, British Landscape Painting of the 18th Century, Faber: London, 1973, p. 76
- Henry Penruddocke Wyndham, A Tour Through Monmouthshire and Wales Made in the Months of June and July 1774 and in the months of June, July and August 1777: Salisbury, 1781, pp. 186-87
Other entries in Tour of Wales, 1777
Francis Towne
View of a Mountain, Perhaps near Aberddwlas
View of a Mountain, Perhaps near Aberddwlas
Francis Towne
A View near Dolgelly with Part of Cader Idris
A View near Dolgelly with Part of Cader Idris
Francis Towne
A View of the Salmon Leap from Pont Aberglaslyn
A View of the Salmon Leap from Pont Aberglaslyn
Francis Towne
The West Front of Tintern Abbey
The West Front of Tintern Abbey
Chepstow Chepstow Museum and Art Gallery
Francis Towne
The Ruins of the Great Room in Ludlow Castle, Shopshire, where Milton’s Comus was Performed
The Ruins of the Great Room in Ludlow Castle, Shopshire, where Milton’s Comus was Performed
Footnotes
- 1 Wyndham 1781, pp.186–87.
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Comment
The waterfall of Pistyll Rhaeadr is about two-thirds of the way from Shrewsbury to Lake Bala, and just north-east of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant. The scene was described thus by Wyndham:
Towne has perhaps borrowed the figure of 240 feet and the term “perpendicular” from Wyndham’s account. There is a cow drinking from the pool at the bottom of the falls, and a bit higher up a tiny figure fishing, holding a long stick. The big clump of foliage foreground bottom right is picked out in dark washes in a very early 1770s way (reminiscent of FT029, FT030).