Francis Towne Waterfall at Chudleigh Rock, Devon

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Signed and dated l.r.: F. Towne delt/1787., inscribed in the artist’s hand on label: Water fall at Chudleigh Rock/Francis Towne/1787, pen and brown and grey inks and watercolour over traces of pencil on laid paper with a partial watermark, recto, a preliminary sketch in pencil and pen and brown ink, verso
22.8 x 18.7 cm.; 8 7/8 x 7 3/8 inches

Provenance
Probably Hugh Edward Henry Clifford, 5th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1756-1793),by descent;
Lewis Joseph Hugh Clifford (1889-1964);
A gift to Margaret and Harold Michelmore, 21 October 1955;
Bearne’s, Exeter 15 January 1992, lot 85 (as Waterfall in Chudleigh Glen);
Bearne’s, Exeter, 9 March 1994, lot 90;
Sotheby’s, London, 10 November 1994, lot 114;
Heather Newman, Painswick; from whom bought by Mrs Brian McQuade, Chertsey;
By descent until 2023

Exhibited
Three Exeter Artists of the Eighteenth Century: Francis Hayman RA, Francis Towne, John White Abbott, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 1951, no. 73 or 74

Literature
Richard Stephens, A Catalogue Raisonné of Francis Towne (1739-1816), London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2016, no. FT541

Francis Towne’s highly original drawings are regarded as some of the most beautiful of their time and were observed directly from nature.

The present drawing shows the waterfall at Chudleigh Rocks in Devon, with its characteristic protruding rock to the left of the cascade. The artist made another similar drawing of the waterfall (Stephens, ibid, no. 541A). That work features an angler climbing the rocks and has fewer dominant trees; the water is flowing higher and covers the rocks in the foreground, visible in the present drawing. Chudleigh is about five miles south-east of Canonteign and was a favourite sketching place of Towne’s from 1783-1803.

Hugh, 4th Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1726-1783) was one of Towne’s major patrons. This work, executed four years after his death, was presumably commissioned by one of his sons, Hugh, 5th Baron Clifford (1756-1793) or Charles, 6th Baron Clifford (1759-1831).