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View of Lake Como with Monte Legnone

August 27, 1781
Not on view
Towne traveled to Italy in 1780–81 and experimented with watercolor in ways that influenced the medium’s expressive development. As he headed home via the Italian lakes, he made these studies, dated August 27, from a boat on Lake Como, leaving fingerprints in the wet pigment along the lower edge of one sheet, its composition centered on a sunlit hillside backed by distant mountains. The other work is more claustrophobic, showing sheer gray cliffs plunging into the lake before the cloud-topped peak named Monte Legnone. The abstracted quality of Towne’s work results from patches of subtly modulated watercolor edged with lines of ink. Other sheets from the related sketchbook are preserved at Tate Britain and the Yale Center for British Art.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: View of Lake Como with Monte Legnone
  • Artist: Francis Towne (British, Isleworth, Middlesex 1739–1816 Exeter)
  • Date: August 27, 1781
  • Medium: Pen and brown ink and watercolor
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 6 1/8 × 8 1/4 in. (15.6 × 21 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Harry G. Sperling Fund, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.621
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

More Artwork
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A View near the Arco Scuro, looking towards the Villa Medici, at Rome, Francis Towne British, Watercolor over graphite with pen and brown ink
A View near the Arco Scuro, looking towards the Villa Medici, at Rome
Francis Towne
1785
Berry Pomeroy Castle in Devon, Francis Towne British, Watercolor and pen and ink on two joined sheets
Berry Pomeroy Castle in Devon
Francis Towne
1773–80, with additions in 1805
An ivy covered ruin, Francis Towne British, Watercolor with pen and brown ink with traces of graphite
An ivy covered ruin
Francis Towne
late 1780s–early 1790s
View of Lake Como, Francis Towne British, Pen and brown ink and watercolor
View of Lake Como
Francis Towne
August 27, 1781
Near Glaris [Glarus], Switzerland, Francis Towne British, Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, over traces of graphite
Near Glaris [Glarus], Switzerland
Francis Towne
C. & I. Honig
September 2, 1781

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