- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
- Date
- (?) 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper (part watermark: crown)
- Dimensions
- 16.7 × 22.1 cm, 6 ⅝ × 8 ¾ in
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Hills and Mountains; North Wales; River Scenery
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1325
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001, 2002 and 2018
Provenance
Chambers Hall (1786–1855); presented to the Museum, 1855
Exhibition History
Bremen, 1977, no.219; London, 1985, no.75; London, 2002, no.117; Beijing, 2007, no.1.37
Bibliography
Binyon, 1898–1907, no.11; Binyon, 1900, pl.8; Bishop, 2018–19, pp.93–94
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
Interior View of the Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This small colour sketch shows the wooden bridge over the river Glaslyn, near Beddgelert, with the low grey clouds helping to create a misty effect characteristic of Welsh mountain views (Bishop, 2018–19, pp.93–94). The same bridge can be seen in an engraving that was used to illustrate Thomas Pennant’s (1726–98) A Tour in Wales (see figure 1) (Pennant, 1784), and, though the view looks in the opposite direction, it nonetheless helps to establish the fact that Girtin’s sketch shows a scene close to the village of Beddgelert and not further along the Glaslyn valley, as I suggested in the 2002 bicentenary exhibition catalogue (Smith, 2002b, p.154). The hill in the centre of the image is therefore not a close-up view of Dinas Emrys, the eminence that is the focus of the on-the-spot colour sketch A Mountain View, near Beddgelert (TG1321), which Girtin executed on his 1798 tour. Whether this sketch was also made on the spot on the same trip is not so clear-cut, however. The comparatively complex build-up of washes on the hill and the bridge indicates a degree of deliberation in its production, and it has been suggested that ‘the detailing of the foreground boulders and the sharper accents on the central pillar of the bridge’ were ‘added later’ in the studio (British Museum, Collection, 1855,0214.18). Whilst it is perfectly possible that Girtin worked up an on-the-spot sketch to make it more saleable, on balance I suspect that this work’s smaller size, in comparison with the other studies from the 1798 tour, means that he was able to create a more finished record of a damp, misty effect, which would have remained unchanged as he made his drawing. Features such as the limited range of tones, the prominence of the pencil lines and the flat unworked areas of wash to the left all suggest that the view was studied from nature, even if it is not possible to prove either way whether it subsequently underwent modification.
Girtin sent two watercolours to the 1799 exhibition of the Royal Academy with the title ‘Bethkellert, North Wales’, but only one them has been identified – the monumental view commissioned by Edward Lascelles (1764–1814) (TG1322) (Exhibitions: Royal Academy, London, 1799, nos.347 and 381). Although the second view has not been traced, it is possible that it was based on this drawing, which is the only other sketch made close enough to Beddgelert to have passed under such a title at the Academy. That said, the catalogues of the Academy’s exhibitions are notoriously riddled with errors and I suspect that the second work was the other impressive Lascelles commission, The Ogwen Falls (TG1330), appearing under an incorrect title.
Girtin’s contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) travelled to North Wales in the same year, and he sketched a similar view of the Glaslyn valley, including the same rustic bridge (see figure 2). According to Joseph Farington (1747–1821), Turner travelled to ‘South & North Wales this Summer’, and he told the diarist that he was ‘alone and on Horseback – out 7 weeks’. Given that the artist was not reported to be back in London until late September, it is clear that although Turner sketched many of the same subjects as Girtin, they did so independently, with his visit to Beddgelert taking place a month or so later. The weather, Turner noted, included ‘much rain’, but this was ‘better for effects’, as Girtin’s sketch attests (Farington, Diary, 26 September 1798).
On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as a white laid writing paper, made by an unknown English manufacturer, and that it was worked on the artist’s favoured wireside, where the surface is impressed with the lines of the mould used in its manufacture (Smith, 2002b, p.154; Bower, Report).
(?) 1798
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
TG1321
1798 - 1799
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
TG1322
1798 - 1799
The Ogwen Falls
TG1330