Beschreibung:

Towne (Francis, 1739/40-1816). Alpine River with Torrent, 1782, watercolour on laid paper with pencil, pen and grey ink, heightened with gum arabic, and scratching out, signed to lower centre 'F. Towne del. 1782', partly obliterated by the artist (see note on this work below), mounted on card by the artist, partial inscription to sheet edge verso 'No. 2..', gum arabic wash to verso, sheet size 287 x 467 mm (11 3/8 x 18 1/2 ins), framed and glazed (49.5 x 65 cm) (Quantity: 1) Provenance: Iolo Aneurin Williams (1890-1962), collector and author of Early English Watercolours and Some Cognate Drawings by Artists born not later than 1785 (London: Connoisseur, 1952), purchased by him from an unidentified exhibition in 1929. Literature Adrian Bury Francis Towne Lone Star of Water-Colour Painting (Charles Skilton, 1962), page 149, listed as in the ownership of Iolo A. Williams, Esq., Alpine Landscape with Torrent, 'Signature F. Towne is partly erased but still just visible.' Richard Stephens A Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne (2016), FT362. Exhibited: Exhibition of Original Drawings at the Gallery, No.20 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. A series of the most picturesque scenes in the neighbourhood of Rome, Naples and other parts of Italy, Switzerland, etc. together with a select number of views of the Lakes in Cumberland, Westmoreland, And in North Wales, London, 1805, number 99 or 117 as 'Near the Source of the Rhine'; Unidentied exhibition, 1929. Catalogue Note The central experience of Francis Towne's artistic life was his year in Italy in 1780-1, studying the ruins of ancient Rome and the vistas of the campagna. He made the present drawing as he travelled back to England in August and September 1781, accompanied by John 'Warwick' Smith. As he crossed the Splugen Pass from Italy, and through Switzerland to Chamonix, Towne worked concurrently from two sketchbooks, producing from each a numbered series of drawings. The present work is from the larger series, drawn on highly prized Dutch C & I HONIG paper. Sheets were sought after by 20th century collectors and examples from the series are to be found in the British Museum, the National Gallery, Melbourne, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, among other museums. It is unknown how large the series was, but twenty-four drawings survive, the latest being numbered 29, a view of Pantenbruck in the canton of Glarus from 3 September (Leeds City Art Gallery). Most of the inscription on the present drawing has been cut away, leaving its place in the sequence uncertain; but it is numbered '24' or '34' and, if the latter, it may depict a part of Towne's Swiss travels not otherwise recorded, for his route from Glarus to Chamonix is largely unknown. The artistic triumphs of his year abroad did not lead to recognition for Towne during the latter part of his career. Though he exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy in London, whose membership he sought frequently, he continued to make his living as a drawing master and viewmaker in Devon, far from the centre of the art world. It was not until the 1920s – a century after his death – that the discovery in an Exeter villa of hundreds of his sketches – bequeathed by the artist to friends, the Merivale family – led to the recognition of Towne as one of the great landscape painters in watercolour. The present work, however, is among the very few that did not descend through the Merivale family, and it probably left Towne's ownership during his lifetime. It is also unusual among Towne's Swiss drawings for, whereas most are monochrome studies, this drawing and two others – a view on Lake Como (British Museum) and of the river Nolla at Thusis (Courtauld Institute) – are highly coloured. The latter part of Towne's career co-incided with changing fashions in landscape art, as a new generation of 'painters in watercolour' cast off the earlier conventions of pen and wash drawing, in which Towne had been