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Charles Towne was born in Wigan, Lancashire, and was a precocious talent. His first exhibited picture was at an exhibition arranged by the Society for Promoting the Arts of Painting and Design, the forerunner of the Liverpool Academy, in 1786. Pursuing an ambition to become an independent artist painting animals and landscapes, Towne travelled to London in 1796, where he appears to have remained for some years, exhibiting at the Royal Academy between 1799-1812, and becoming a friend of George Morland and Philip Jacques de Loutherbourg, both of whose work informed his own. He developed a reputation as one of the leading painters of horses, and returning to Liverpool became a member of the Liverpool Academy, of which he was Vice president in 1812 and 1813. The exquisitely detailed landscape in this work is characteristic of the artist's paintings.