(1740 - 1816), painter; b. Exeter; Shipley's Sch.; First Premium SA 1759; exh. SA 1762 - 73, RA betw.1775 - 1810.
1780 - 1 [Geneva 7 Sep. 1780] Rome (by 16 Oct. 1780 - Feb. 1781), Naples (8 Mar. - 3 Apr.), Rome (Apr. - Aug.), Lugano (24 Aug.) [England by Sep. 1781]
Towne was already an accomplished water-colourist when he went to Italy at the age of forty in 1780, and Italy induced some of his finest work.1 When James Irvine met him in Rome, two months after his arrival, he thought Towne 'one of the strangest genius's I have seen, with a very indifferent understanding he has all the gravity and formality of a profound philosopher and deep reasoner, but he is I believe what we call a good sort of man & applies to his art wt great industry'.2 After four months in Rome, Towne went to Naples for a month in March 1781, Thomas Jones being happy to act as cicerone to his 'old Acquaintance'. Their misadventures in search of wild sketching sites led Towne to say 'that however he might admire such Scenes in a Picture - he did not relish them in Nature'.3 Back in Rome Towne made further expeditions in the Campagna, to Nemi, Terni, Albano (Apr. 1781), Tivoli (May) and Ariccia (11 Jul.). By August he had left with John 'Warwick' Smith to return via the Italian Lakes, and he was in England by September. Three volumes of his Italian drawings were presented to the British Museum in 1816 by his executors, to be near those of his friend William Pars.
1. See A.P. Opp?, Wal.Soc., 8[1920]:97, 108 - 15. M. Hardie, Watercolour Painting in Britain, 1:119 - 25. 2. Add. 36493, f.68 (Irvine, 16 Dec. 1780). 3. Jones Memoirs, 102 - 5.
