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| Francis Towne Rome - Arches and debris in a ruin on the Palatine 1781 watercolor British Museum |
"Francis Towne's distinctive style began to evolve in the late 1770s, but found its fullest expression in the years 1780-81 when he visited Rome and Naples. On his death in 1816 Towne left his Italian watercolours to the British Museum, the first such bequest by an artist. In fact, his work was not greatly appreciated in his lifetime, perhaps because he deliberately rejected currently fashionable picturesque notions in favour of a spare, linear style, dependent on bold pen outlines and flat washes of colour, often ignoring conventional ideas of perspective and recession. Towne's preoccupation with outline tempts one to consider him closer in spirit to contemporary figure-draughtsmen, notably Flaxman and William Blake, than to most late eighteenth-century landscapists. Although many of his watercolours were drawn on the spot, and carefully annotated with the date, time and light conditions, their appearance of spontaneity is misleading. He imposed a ruthless selectivity on his material, excluding all unnecessary detail in the interest of his overall pattern."
Paintings reproduced here were included in a 2016 exhibition at the British Museum curated by Richard Stephens – Light, Time, Legacy: Francis Towne's Watercolours of Rome – but, sad to say, no catalogue was issued.
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| Francis Towne Rome - Temple of Minerva at Sunset 1781 watercolor British Museum |
"This is probably the best-preserved and most effective sunset among Towne's watercolours of Rome. It achieves the serenity for which Claude Lorrain's evening views were famous in the 18th century. The dome of the so-called temple, seen here virtually complete, collapsed in 1828."
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| Francis Towne Rome - Ancient Wall at the back of the Villa Medici 1781 watercolor British Museum |
"This bright and fresh watercolour shows part of the ancient wall near where the historian Sallust's villa was supposed to have been. Towne's Roman watercolours, which all retain their original mounts and inscriptions, are a precious survival of the mode of display of late 18th century watercolours. They were housed in portfolios, from which they were occasionally retrieved for study and discussion by Towne, his clients and friends. For example, John Herman Merivale and his wife visited Towne in 1815, and she later wrote that 'After tea we looked over a Portfolio of his beautiful Drawings.'"
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| Francis Towne Rome - View under an arch of the Colosseum 1780 watercolor British Museum |
"Towne's exploration of the Colosseum was nothing if not methodical. Ignoring the rest of Rome's classical remains, he returned repeatedly to this one building, always finding a fresh approach to add to his growing portfolio. He did not neglect the gloomy vaulted arcades around the base [directly below] which had earlier attracted both Joseph Wright in 1774-75 and J.R. Cozens in 1778. Where his predecessors had concentrated only on the bleak repetition of the massive piers, Towne preferred to introduce some visual variety: an inviting glimpse of sunshine provided relief from the shadowy corridor, with figures understandably drawn toward the light. Not only the subject itself but also the complexity of the illumination reveal that Towne, in common with every other artist approaching this type of material, could not escape the influence of Piranesi. Yet Towne also discovered other aspects to the Colosseum. Despite the gaping hole in the roof, the complete arch [directly above] created the illusion of a Palladian window looking out onto a park strewn with classical remains. The Arch of Constantine, such a favourite trophy for the English in the form of the painted 'capricci' of Pannini, becomes no more than a half-submerged fragment, while crowning the wooded hillside what might be taken for the ruined Palace of the Emperors on the Palatine appears mysteriously intact. This is in fact one of the very few more recent structures there, the Church and Monastery of St. Bonaventura. The lengthy remarks Towne inscribed onto the verso of the mount were derived from one of the most popular guides, Joseph Addison's Remarks on Several Parts of Italy. Addison remarked that the Emperor Constantine had 'through a Divine impulse with a greatness of mind, and by force of arms . . . delivered the Commonwealth at once from the Tyrant & all his Faction.' Towne's Exeter public would have understood the parallel of ancient history and recent political events in England, as in their view William of Orange had saved them from Catholic tyranny when he landed at Dover in 1688 and deposed the Catholic King James II."
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum Gallery 1780 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum Gallery 1780 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum Gallery 1781 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum Interior Passage 1780 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum Interior from the Emperor's Seat 1781 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum Interior 1780 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Colosseum from the Palatine 1781 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Baths of Caracalla 1781 watercolor British Museum |
"In January 1781 Towne made a group of studies of the Baths of Caracalla, probably in the company of 'Warwick' Smith. In these watercolours Towne's palette takes on a new richness, with warm tones of green and golden yellow predominating in contrast to the delicate colours of the drawings made in the preceding autumn. Until systematic excavations began in the mid-nineteenth century, when the luxuriant growth which had made the baths a rival to the Colosseum was cleared away, the romantic neglect of the site attracted artists to sketch its crumbling grandeur. It was also here that Shelley was to write Prometheus Unbound in the spring of 1819, noting in the Preface: 'This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees which extend in ever-winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening Spring in that divinest climate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the inspiration of the drama.'"
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| Francis Towne Rome - Baths of Caracalla 1781 watercolor British Museum |
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| Francis Towne Rome - Baths of Caracalla 1781 watercolor British Museum |
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| John Downman Study for portrait of Francis Towne 1795 drawing British Museum |
"Downman and Towne were friends who shared lodgings in London from the 1780s to the mid-1790s, and this portrait study may well commemorate the end of their cohabitation in 1795. Like Towne, Downman spent much time in his final years sorting through his life's work, adding new inscriptions and organising it into groups."
– quoted passages are from curator's notes at the British Museum