drawing
- Museum number
- 1958,0712.386
- Description
-
Rydal Water looking towards Grasmere; trees in right foreground and shore of lake, lake surface reflecting dawn or dusk light, rowing boat in distance, and mountains beyond. 1786
Pen and grey and brown ink and watercolour with gum arabic; on four conjoined sheets
- Production date
- 1786
- Dimensions
-
Height: 298 millimetres
-
Width: 568 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The following label was written by Richard Stephens for the Towne exhibition in 2016:
While his 1780-1 visit to Rome was by far his most significant working trip, Towne also made several sketching tours around Britain. The Lake District in north west England was a well-established tourist destination by the mid-1780s, when Towne visited with his friends James White (1744-1825) and John Merivale (1752-1831). As a drawing master and landscape painter, Towne maintained a stock of sketches of fashionable scenery and historically significant sites that were of interest to his clientele of prosperous West country families.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1959, British Museum
1960, British Museum
2016 Jan-Aug, BM, 'Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne's watercolours of Rome' (no catalogue)
- Acquisition date
- 1958
- Acquisition notes
- This item has an uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45. The British Museum welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.
Unknown before bequeathed to BM by Lloyd. The BM does not have his records of acquisition for all of his watercolours.
The Francis Towne catalogue raisonne by Richard Stephens, Paul Mellon Centre, notes that quite possibly it is BP146 Rydal Water sold in August 1936 or February 1937 by Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945) to Squire Gallery for £23 2s. This drawing may well be the otherwise untraced Rydal Water that Wilcox (exh Tate) mentions as having been sold at Christie’s on 14 August 1942 and measuring 11 x 22¼ in. (279 x 565 mm).
UNDER THE TERMS OF THE BEQUEST, NONE OF THE PRINTS OR DRAWINGS BEQUEATHED BY R. W. LLOYD MAY BE LENT OUTSIDE THE BRITISH MUSEUM (Registration Numbers 1958,0712.318 to 3149).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1958,0712.386
