John White Abbott (1763-1851), after Francis Towne (1739-1816) [Aw599]
VIEW OF ISOLA BELLA, LAGO MAGGIORE, c. 1816
Pen and ink wash; inscribed by the artist on the reverse: Lavano with Isola Bella on the left/ …can Islands. Morning light from the left [part of the inscription is cut off where it continued from another sheet] (H. 24 cm, W. 34 cm)
John White Abbott was an apothecary and surgeon from Exeter who was also a talented amateur artist. Most of his drawings are Devon views, although some date from a tour of the Lake District and Scotland which he undertook in 1791. His uncle James White (1745-1825) was a close friend of the artist Francis Towne (see cat. no. 6) and White Abbott’s watercolours resemble Towne’s in their use of flat planes of colour and emphasis on light and shade. It seems likely that Towne gave drawing lessons to the younger man. On James White’s death in 1825, White Abbott inherited his estate at Fordland near Exeter and regularly sketched in its grounds.
The current drawing is based on a sketch by Francis Towne drawn on 26th August 1781 and now in the Tate collection. White Abbott would have seen Towne’s sketches with his uncle after the artist’s death in 1816 and a number of these copies exist. It depicts Lake Maggiore from Lavano, with Isola Bella to the left and Isola Madre to the right.
Although White Abbott exhibited both watercolours and oils regularly at the Royal Academy between 1795 and 1805, he never sold any of his work. It therefore remained little known until well into the twentieth century when his descendants began to sell his pictures.
Literature: FT820 in the Paul Mellon Centre’s online catalogue raisonné of the works of Francis Towne
Provenance: By descent through the artist’s family until sold Sotheby’s, London, 25 November 1999, lot 92; bequest of Adam Crick, 2016