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Works (?) Thomas Girtin

A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman

1794 - 1795

Primary Image: TG1524: (?) Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman, 1794–95, graphite and white chalk on grey paper, 18.4 × 22.2 cm, 7 ¼ × 8 ¾ in. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Gilbert Davis Collection (59.55.599).

Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Gilbert Davis Collection (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
(?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
Title
  • A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman
Date
1794 - 1795
Medium and Support
Graphite and white chalk on grey paper
Dimensions
18.4 × 22.2 cm, 7 ¼ × 8 ¾ in
Object Type
Outline Drawing
Subject Terms
Unidentified Topographical View

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG1524
Girtin & Loshak Number
393 as by Thomas Girtin, 'c. 1800'
Description Source(s)
Viewed in 2001

Provenance

P & D Colnaghi & Co., 1948; Gilbert Davis (1899–1983); bought from him by the Gallery, 1959

Bibliography

The Huntington Online as 'Landscape' by Thomas Girtin (Accessed 17/09/2022)

About this Work

These sketches were attributed to Girtin by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak in their catalogue of the artist’s work, and they argued that the ‘church is apparently the same’ as seen in a watercolour now identified as showing Kirk Deighton in Yorkshire (TG1647), which is dated 1800 (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.188). The drawing of the church is certainly competent, and it displays a spatial coherence that is consistent with the work of a professional artist; moreover, there are some similarities with Girtin’s practice in terms of the bold and confident handling of the graphite. However, these are outweighed by any number of other uncharacteristic features. First amongst these is the use of soft graphite on a coloured paper, something that has no precedent in Girtin’s sketches, and this is compounded by the fact that there is no comparable example of the artist introducing such prominent figure studies into one of his landscape sketches. Indeed, there is no evidence either that this is an on-the-spot sketch, and elements such as the substitution of bold hatching for Girtin’s characteristic use of outline, the way that the composition has been worked equally across the whole sheet with the fall of shadows carefully indicated, and with the introduction of figures all suggest that we are looking at a study for a finished landscape, something that again has no precedent in Girtin’s working practice. It seems, therefore, that Girtin and Loshak were persuaded by the superficial resemblance between the subject of this drawing and the signed and dated view of Kirk Deighton to ignore the more substantial inconsistencies with Girtin’s practice, and consequently I am minded to question their attribution.

1800

Kirk Deighton, near Wetherby

TG1647

by Greg Smith

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