- Museum number
- Nn,3.17
- Description
-
The Falls of Terni, drawing from an album; seen from below in a rocky landscape
Pen and brown and grey ink, with watercolour with scratching out; on six conjoined sheets
- Production date
- 1799
- Dimensions
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Height: 838 millimetres
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Width: 527 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- From album NN,03.1-17
See Nn,1.1 for information about the Towne albums as a whole.
Exhibited at the BM, 1982 (no catalogue, extended label). Although Towne has noted that the drawing was made on the spot in 1781, the inscription 'delt 1799' suggests that he did not add the colour until many years later after his return to England.
T. Wilcox, Francis Towne, London 1997
The Cascatelle delle Marmore at Terni, in the Appenines north of Rome, were the most spectacular natural phenomenon Italy offered the traveller on the Grand Tour. Only Vesuvius in eruption could come remotely near it. Travellers and artist alike were forced to acknowledge that at the colossal power and deafening sound of the falls all conventional decorum broke down. "Well done water, by God" is said to have been Wilson's reaction (Constable 1953, p. 26). The same intemperate language was called on by Lord Pembroke in 1779, enjoining his nineteen-year-old son "At Terni, in God's name go and see the cataract of the Nera" (Herbert 1939, p. 23). The sheer magnitude of the falls could only be expressed by the invocation of the deity.
Terni elicited from Towne an appropriately exceptional response, his largest ever drawing from nature, made on six joined sheets of paper; only the 'Mer de Glace', a replica made on commission, is larger (T. Wilcox, Francis Towne, London 1997, cat. no. 63). Towne's special affection for waterfalls, and his concern to capture something of their physical presence, as well as their imaginative and spiritual resonance, is confirmed by his 1777 drawing of Rhaidr Du in Wales; there he required a collage of seven pieces to convey their full breadth (Ingram family Collection).
Unlike Tivoli, where the falls permitted a variety of viewpoints, access at Terni was more restricted. Towne's composition is fundamentally similar to the paintings by Thomas Patch made in 1764 (National Museum of Wales) and by Carlo Labruzzi (versions at Hinton Ampner, Hampshire, and the Musée de Carcassonne). Hackert made several drawings and paintings of Terni, with the brown wash version now in Cleveland Museum of Art demonstrating remarkable similarities of approach to Towne. Much of Towne's broad brush colouring must have been applied at the time, even if not actually on the spot and is directly comparable with his large Tivoli, no. 28. It is not known precisely why he should have returned to it in 1799; with the possible exception of the water there is little evidence of reworking. His renewed interest in the subject may have been related to the creation of the version owned by James White which was, not insignificantly, singled out for special mention in White's will (see Bury 1962, pl. v).
The following label was written by Richard Stephens for the Towne exhibition in 2016:
The waterfalls near Terni in Umbria were one of the best-known tourist sites in Italy. Towne visited them on his route towards the north Italian lakes on his journey home to England.
This is the largest of all Towne's watercolours, and his extensive work on it - so many years after the visit itself - led him to date it 1799 (though the date 1781 appears on the back of the mount). Characteristic of this later style of watercolour is its reduced reliance on a strong pen line - parts of which Towne has scratched off this watercolour - and in the deep shading often achieved by applying ink in hatched brush strokes.
It is largely through close study of the style of the watercolours that Towne was making at this late stage in his career that it is possible to make inferences about the extensive revisions he made to other Italian-period works.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1958 Apr, BM, Eight centuries of landscape ... water-colours, case 56
1982 BM P&D, 'Francis Towne and John 'Warwick Smith', no cat.
1997 June-Sept, London, Tate Gallery, Francis Towne
2016, Jan-Aug, BM, 'Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne's watercolours of Rome' (no catalogue)
- Acquisition date
- 1816
- Acquisition notes
- T. Wilcox, Francis Towne, London 1997
Donated in accordance with the artist's wishes by James White and J. H.Merivale, 1818
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Nn,3.17
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 1972,U.787
