Francis Towne
Ullswater

Public Domain

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Images(4)

Artist Francis Towne (British, 1739–1816)British, 1739–1816

CultureBritish

Titles

Ullswater

Datec. 1786

MediumGraphite, pen and black and brown ink and watercolor on laid paper

DimensionsSheet: 10 1/2 × 14 15/16 in. (26.7 × 37.9 cm)

Credit LineThe Stuart Collection, museum purchase funded by Francita Stuart Koelsch Ulmer in honor of Lowell Libson, and in memory of Rowena Libson

Object number2024.15

Not on view

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Special Collections

The Stuart Collection

Object Type

DRAWINGS, PASTELS & WATERCOLORS

ProvenanceBequeathed by the artist to James White of Exeter (1744–1825) in 1816; James White of Exeter, 1816–1825; by bequest to Towne’s residuary legatee John Herman Merivale (1779–1844); by descent to his granddaughters Maria Sophia Merivale (1853–1928) and Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945), both of Oxford, May 1915 1938; purchased by [Agnew’s, London, by 1938]; J. C. R. Downing, Esq., before 1981; [his sale, London, Sotheby’s, Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century British Watercolours and Drawings, March 19, 1981, lot 105]; private collection, East Anglia, United Kingdom, by 2012–2022; [Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker, Ltd, London by 2022–2023]; purchased by MFAH, 2023.
Exhibition HistoryPossibly Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 20 Lower Brook Street, 1805, no. 53, 54 or 55 (as 'Ulswater, or Ulswater, near Patterdale')
Home and Abroad: Drawings and Watercolours from a Private Collection 1700-1840, exh., Gainsborough's House, Sudbury, Suffolk, June 30-September 29, 2012, p. 25, Cat. 32, illus. front cover

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: [none]
Verso: Inscribed in ink, upper right: Light from the Left hand / Ulswater [cursive]
Verso: Inscribed in graphite, lower left: [illegible] / [illegible] / 22 x 18
Verso: Inscribed in graphite, lower right: 91 [encircled]
Verso: Inscribed in graphite, bottom right corner: B /s HH 66 / ci/91

[none]

Catalogue raisonnéOppé , Paul. “Francis Towne, Landscape Painter,” Walpole Society, VIII, 1920, pp, 121-2. Stephens, Richard. A Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne (1739-1816). London: Paul Mellon Centre, 2016 (online catalogue), Cat. FT526, illus.

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