- Description
-
- Creator
- Francis Towne (1739 - 1816)
- Title(s)
-
- View of the Wrekin, Shropshire
- Date
- 1783
- Medium
- Pencil, watercolour
- Dimensions
-
- image width 270mm,
- image length 365mm
- Support
- laid paper
- Mount
- on a contemporary mount now much cut down
- Inscription
-
- sheet, recto, lower right
- “F.Towne delt. 1783”
- in brown ink
- Inscription
-
- artist's mount, verso
- “A View of the Wrekin in Shropshire / going from Wenlock to Shrewsbury / done on the spot / by / Francis Towne / 1783”
- in brown ink in a neat hand
- Object Type
- Watercolour
-
- Catalogue Number
- FT397
- Description Sources
- Examination; Sotheby’s records (image)
Provenance
Untraced until 1944 when it was on sale at the Fine Art Society. It was sold at Sotheby’s on 13 October 1954, lot 13, for £75 to the Fine Art Society (no.6121), who sold it on 30 March 1955 for £136 10s. to Sir Adrian Holman (1895–1974). In 1962 Bury noted it in a “private collection” in 1962, and it is thereafter untraced until offered for sale at Sotheby’s on 19 March 2003, lot 149, and again at Sotheby’s on 1 July 2004, lot 203. It was sold at Rosebery’s, West Norwood, on 16 June 2009, lot 966, for £1,600 (hammer price) to Abbott and Holder, where it was offered for sale (having been cleaned) in October 2009.
- Associated People & Organisations
- Private Collection, 2009
- Abbott and Holder Ltd, London, October 2009
- Abbott and Holder Ltd, London, 16 June 2009, GBP 1600
- Rosebery of West Norwood, West Norwood, 16 June 2009, lot 966
- Sotheby's, London, 1 July 2004
lot 203 - Sotheby's, London, 19 March 2003
lot 149 - Sir Adrian Holman (1895 - 1974), 30 March 1955, GBP 136.10s
- The Fine Art Society, London, London, 13 October 1954, GBP 75, no.6121
- Sotheby's, London, London, 13 October 1954, lot 13
- The Fine Art Society, London, London, 1944
- Bibliography
- Adrian Bury, Francis Towne - Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, Charles Skilton: London, 1962, p. 70
Other entries in Studio Watercolours, 1783–1800
Much Wenlock, Shropshire, with the Ruins of the Priory Church
The Wrekin, on the Road between Much Wenlock and Shrewsbury
A View going from the Head of Lake Como over Mount Splugen
The Campagna near Rome looking towards the Sabine Mountains
A View of Loreto with Part of the Adriatic Sea
A View near the Arco Scuro Looking towards the Villa Medici
An Evening View from Mount Palatine looking towards Mount Aventine
A View on the Banks of the Tiber near Monte Milvio
A View of the Temple of Venus looking towards the Island of Nisida
Chateau de Glerolles, near Vevey on Lake Geneva
Abbey Valley Crucis, near Llangollen on the River Dee, North Wales
A View on the Banks of the Dee above Llangollen
A View of the Bay of Naples with the Island of Capri
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
Comment
This is one of two Shropshire views that are dated 1783 and based on Towne’s 1777 North Wales drawings, perhaps ordered by the same person. The source of this work is FT067, dated 1777, and a version was exhibited in 1805 (FT068). A further unfinished version may have been a first attempt (FT398).