- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- Pont Aberglasllyn
- Date
- 1777/07/09
- Medium
- Pencil, pen and grey ink, grey and blue wash
- Dimensions
-
- image width 278mm,
- image length 431mm
- Inscription
-
- sheet, verso
- “1777 / July 9th No21 Pont Aberglasllyn. drawn on the spot by Francis Towne”
- Object Type
- Monochrome wash
-
- Collection
-
- (1921P97)
- Catalogue Number
- FT086
- Description Sources
- Examination; Museum records (image)
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 Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, inherited the drawing in May 1915 (BP110). On 24 May 1921 they sold it to Agnew’s (no.9951) for £15 for onward sale (for £350 with FT072, FT074, FT108, FT111, FT237, FT260, FT366, FT469, FT504) the same day to the present owner, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 24 May 1921, GBP 350, 1921P97
- Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 24 May 1921, GBP 15, no.9951
- Judith Ann Merivale (1860 - 1945), Oxford, May 1915, BP110
- Maria Sophia Merivale (1853 - 1928), Oxford, May 1915, BP110
- John Herman Merivale (1779 - 1844), 1825
- James White (1744 - 1825), Exeter, 1816
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 135
- 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. 125-126
- Paul Oppé, 'Francis Towne, Landscape Painter', The Walpole Society: London, 1920, p. 107
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Comment
Pont Aberglaslyn is just south of Beddgelert. Translated, it means “bridge at the mouth of the river Glaslyn”. The Glaslyn flows southwards into the Traeth Bach at Porthmadog.
This is one of at least three drawings Towne made at Aberglaslyn (the others are FT087 and FT088), plus a later version close to this drawing dated 1795 (FT783). For Wyndham and, it seems, for Towne North Wales was at its most sublime along the path following the River Glaslyn:
The fame of the Pont Aberglaslyn landscape was increased by its inclusion among Paul Sandby’s aquatints published in 1777, and Samuel Grimm also made a drawing in 1777 that was published in Wyndham’s 1781 edition. Towne’s vision is closer to Grimm’s than to Sandby’s, in that he has created less of a foreground with which to introduce the scene, although all three artists are fundamentally working with the same compositional elements to effect the same thing—landscapes that look majestic and forbidding.