Francis Towne 1740-1816

With the Fine Art Society, December 1945;

Anonymous sale, Christie's, 14th March 1978, lot 82

Towne visited the Lake District with his friends, James White and John Merivale, in the late summer of 1786.  They arrived on 7th August and spent just over two weeks there, leaving on or after the 23rd.  For the first ten days they stayed at Ambleside, on Lake Windermere, and from there they covered most of the central area.  Although Derwentwater, or Keswick Lake as it was commonly known, was generally regarded as having more dramatic scenery than Windermere they spent less time there after moving from their base at Ambleside.  Instead, they concentrated on the local scenery such as Elterwater which was often overlooked by travellers.  The Western Lakes of Bassenthwaite and Buttermere were only visited briefly, possibly because of bad weather which cut short his trip, and the present work is one of the few sketches from this area.

During his tour of the Lake District Towne used two sketchbooks of different sizes, and also a portfolio of larger sheets of paper. The larger of the two sketchbooks contained forty drawings, almost all inscribed and dated, which makes it possible to reconstruct the progress of the party in some detail