View looking towards the Appenines, Italy

Details

Francis Towne (1740-1816)
View looking towards the Appenines, Italy
signed, dated and numbered 'F. Towne. delt./1781 No. 6' (lower left) and further signed, inscribed and dated 'No. 6./Light from the right hand/A View Looking towards the Appenines/Drawn August 11th 1781 by/Francis Towne' (on the reverse)
pen and brown ink and watercolour, on the artist's wash-line mount
6 x 8¼ in. (15.2 x 21 cm.)

Provenance

Iolo Williams.
Mrs Iolo Williams and by bequest to L.G. Duke.
with Spink, London.

Literature

I. Williams, Early English Watercolours, London, 1952, pl. 154, pp. 88-89.
A. Bury, Francis Towne: Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting, London, 1962, no. 131, pp. 121, 149.

Exhibited

Norfolk, Norwich Castle Museum, Eighteenth Century Italy and the Grand Tour, 1965, no. 99.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

The present drawing was included in the artist's one-man show in 1805, no. 131, as part of a group of nine 'Views in Italy', nos. 128-136, all made at the beginning of his journey home. The ..., no. 1, is dated 1 August, and no. 7, inscribed '15 miles on the road from Florence to Bolognais' is dated 11 August (Yale Center for British Art). Towne presumably stopped for a few days in Florence; the present drawing was painted when he resumed his journey after this pause.

We are grateful to Timothy Wilcox for his help in preparing the catalogue entry.

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