drawing;
album
- Museum number
- Nn,3.6
- Description
-
Tivoli from below the falls, with the Temple of Vesta, formerly part of an album; rocky mountains on either side with temple in top r, water rapids in left foreground, with trees in right bank. 1781
Pen and grey ink with grey and brown wash and watercolour
- Production date
- 1781
- Dimensions
-
Height: 502 millimetres
-
Width: 390 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- From album NN,03.1-17
See Nn,1.1 for information about the Towne albums as a whole.
Since at least the seventeenth century, Tivoli had been a favoured spot for landscape draughtsmen working in Rome. Towne was therefore following a long established tradition when he visited the area in May 1781.
The following label was written by Richard Stephens for the Towne exhibition in 2016:
Towne had a reputation for hard work and frugality and, on arrival in Rome, a fellow artist described him as 'a good sort of man & applies to his art with great industry.' The mount of this watercolour, which shows Tivoli from the bottom of the gorge - a viewpoint made popular by the 1744 engraving of Gaspard Dughet's painting of the same scene - gives the date as 'May 15th. 1781 from 3 o clock till 6.' As a sign of Towne's habits of hard work, the inscription on another sketch indicates that he had been working since 5am that day.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1980 Jun-Sep, London, Kenwood, Gaspar Dughet, no. 77
1982 BM P&D, 'Francis Towne and John 'Warwick Smith', no cat.
1988 Oct-Dec, Manchester, Whitworth AG, Travels in Italy, no. 53
1996/97 Oct-Jan, London, Tate Gallery, Grand Tour no. 113
1997 Rome, Pal Esposizione, Grand Tour
2016 Jan-Aug, BM, 'Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne's watercolours of Rome' (no catalogue)
- Acquisition date
- 1816
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Nn,3.6
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 1972,U.641