Charles Robert Leslie (1794–1859), the earliest biographer of John Constable (1776–1837), owned two works by Girtin, one of which, Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris (TG1334), was used as an illustration for his A Hand-Book for Painters (Leslie, 1855). It was Leslie who recorded the influence on Constable’s career of the watercolours by Girtin owned by their shared patron Sir George Howland Beaumont (1753–1827), though the ‘thirty drawings’ cited mistakenly included the set of twenty Paris aquatints (Leslie, 1845, p.6).

1798 - 1799

Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris

TG1334