Towne’s works dating from his Grand Tour to Italy in 1780 to 1781 are considered among the greatest of eighteenth-century Romantic watercolours. His idiosyncratic style, using pen and ink and flat washes of colour, is particularly suited to the depiction of mountains and effects of light and shade, and his work became bolder and more confident during his year abroad. He was also one of the first British artists to meticulously inscribe and date his drawings and often added comments on the time of day and the direction of the light.

Born in Devon, Towne’s first sketching tour was to Wales in 1777 and he left for Italy in the summer of 1780. He was in Rome by October and in March 1781 he continued to Naples where he spent a month sketching with his fellow artist Thomas Jones (1742–1803). He returned to Rome in early April and the present drawing dates from a visit to Vicovaro in the Licenza Valley, about 28 miles north-west of Rome, on 22^nd April. Vicovaro had recently been identified as the site of Hadrian’s Villa and therefore became a popular attraction for Grand Tourists. This is one of five recorded drawings by Towne dated 22^nd April, three of which are views of nearby Castello Madama.

Towne left Rome in August 1781 and travelled back to England through Switzerland in the company of John `Warwick’ Smith (1749–1831). He was home by the end of September and never ventured abroad again. By the early nineteenth century, his drawings which had appeared so modern in 1780 became to seem old-fashioned. His work was rediscovered in the twentieth century and influenced a generation of Modern British artists.

 

Literature: FT 249 in the Paul Mellon Centre’s online catalogue raisonné of the works of Francis Towne; Richard Foster, English Watercolours from the Adam Crick Bequest (Winchester, 2017), pp. 8–9.

Provenance: Bequeathed by the artist to J.H. Merivale (1779–1844) of Barton Place, Exeter; inherited by his granddaughter, Judith Ann Merivale (1860–1945) of Oxford, 1915; Miss Emily Norrie (perhaps 1891–1973) of Connecticut, August 1933; Sotheby’s, New York, 21 April 1971, lot 184; Agnew’s, London, 1973; private collection; Christie’s, 11 November 1997, lot 5; bequest of Adam Crick, 2016.