The Lake of Coniston, Lake District

Francis Towne (1740-1816)
The Lake of Coniston, Lake District

Signed verso: No. 24/Lake of Coniston light from the left hand/August 25.h 1786/ F. Towne
Pen and grey ink and watercolour over pencil
15.5 by 47 cm., 6 by 18 ½ in.

Provenance:
Bequeathed by the artist in 1816 to James White of Exeter (1744-1825);
John Herman Merivale (1779-1844);
By descent to his grand-daughter Maria Sophia Merivale (1853-1928);
Her sister Judith Ann Merivale (1860-1945);
Sold as part of a sketchbook to H.B. Milling of Squire Gallery for £25;
With Colnaghi, January 1946;
Sold to David, Viscount Eccles (1904-1999) for £85;
With Agnew's 1979, sold to a private collector, January 1980;
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, 14th November 1991, lot 68;
Private Collection until 1997;
With Spink-Leger, London, 1999;
Private collection, UK until 2011

Literature:
Timothy Wilcox, Francis Towne, exhibition catalogue, 1997, p. 117 under no. 52

Exhibited:
London, The Gallery, Lower Brook St., Towne's `Exhibition of Original Drawings, 1805, no.86

This is one of only two drawings Towne produced of Lake Coniston on his tour of the Lake District in August 1786. The other is inscribed 15th August and is in the Yale Center for British Art (see Wilcox, op. cit., no. 52, p.117. Both are drawn from the north end of the lake. This looks west down the lake from the road leading from Hawkshead to Coniston with the Old Man of Coniston to the right and Brown and Buck Pike to the left.

We are grateful to Richard Stephens and Charles Nugent for their help in cataloguing this watercolour.