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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after John Robert Cozens

A Convent Overlooking the Arno, near Castel del Bosco

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0792: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after John Robert Cozens (1752–97), A Convent Overlooking the Arno, near Castel del Bosco, 1794–97, graphite and watercolour on wove paper (watermark: Fleur-de-Lys, beneath a crown), on an original mount (watermark: 1812), 16.5 × 25.4 cm, 6 ½ × 9 ¾ in. Private Collection.

Photo courtesy of Bridgeman Images, Agnew's, London (All Rights Reserved)

Artist's source: (?) John Robert Cozens (1752–97), after Alexander Cozens (1717–86), A Convent Between Castel del Bosco and La Strada Scala, graphite on paper, 17.8 × 25.1 cm, 7 × 9 ⅞ in. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1977.14.4585).

Photo courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (Public Domain)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
Title
  • A Convent Overlooking the Arno, near Castel del Bosco
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper (watermark: Fleur-de-Lys, beneath a crown), on an original mount (watermark: 1812)
Dimensions
16.5 × 25.4 cm, 6 ½ × 9 ¾ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Italian View: Tuscany; River Scenery

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0792
Description Source(s)
Auction Catalogue

Provenance

Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); his posthumous sale, possibly Christie's, 2 July 1833, lot 104, as 'The convent at Camaldoli, Florence, Brescia, &c. 6' by 'Turner'; bought by 'Rogers', £9 9s; possibly Samuel Rogers (1763–1855); then by descent to his great-nephew, Henry Rogers (c.1823–78); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 21 May 1878, lot 132 as 'Italian Scene, with buildings' by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought by 'Clive', £29 8s; ... Thos. Agnew & Sons, 1966, £380; Lady Cust; her sale, Christie's, 5 March 1974, lot 192 as 'An Italian Villa on a Hill Overlooking a River' by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, 1,100 gns

Exhibition History

Agnew’s, 1966, no.58 as ’An Italian Villa’ by Joseph Mallord William Turner; Agnew’s, 1975, no.61 as ’An Italian Villa’ by Joseph Mallord William Turner

About this Work

This view of a convent overlooking the river Arno on the road between Pisa and Florence was copied from a drawing probably by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) (see source image TG0792). It was produced at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), where Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’. The majority of the resulting watercolours saw the two artists engaged in a unique collaboration; as they later recalled, Girtin ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’ and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1

Monro’s posthumous sale, in 1833, contained only twenty or so sketches by Cozens, so the patron must have borrowed the majority of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings’ copied by Girtin and Turner. In this case, the source of the watercolour, a simple outline inscribed ‘Convent between Castel del Bosco & La Strada Scala from Pisa to Florence’, was almost certainly purchased at the sale of ‘Mr COZENS’ in July 1794 by Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827).2 As Kim Sloan has noted, Beaumont mounted ‘215 “tracings” or drawings on oiled paper’ in an album that he presumably lent to Monro, and it was from this collection, now at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, that the two young artists produced more than fifty watercolours (Sloan and Joyner, 1993, pp.89–91). The natural assumption is that the source drawing was executed on the return leg of Cozens’ first trip to Italy, in the spring of 1779. However, as Sloan has pointed out, the inscription here and on the source for a closely related drawing (see source image TG0673), ‘from Pisa to Florence’, would suggest a journey in the opposite direction. It is likely that the original sketch was actually made by Alexander Cozens (1717–86) on his Italian visit around 1746, though, as with other views in the vicinity, what we now have is a tracing of it made by his son John at a later date (Sloan, 1986, pp.127–28). Despite the inscription, it has not been possible to identify the convent shown here.

The bulk of the Monro School copies sold at the patron’s posthumous sale in 1833 were attributed to Turner alone, and, although many have since been accepted as the result of the joint efforts of Girtin and Turner, especially since the publication of Andrew Wilton’s pioneering article in 1984, others (like the work discussed here) have remained under Turner’s name (Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). This is not surprising given that the view has been heavily worked by Turner with a full palette of colours, which appears to have effaced the traces of Girtin’s pencil work. The question then is, if nothing of Girtin’s work remains visible, does it follow that this watercolour departs from the general practice of the artists at Monro’s house (as they described to Farington in 1798)? Although the point can never be proved, I suspect that Girtin was involved in its production, albeit at the most basic level, tracing the outlines from the Cozens drawing; it was Turner’s more onerous task to obscure the essentially mechanical task of replication and produce something that approximates to a finished work.

1794 - 1797

A Convent Overlooking the Arno, near Castel del Bosco

TG0792

1794 - 1797

The Arno, Seen from the Pisa to Florence Road

TG0673

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

Footnotes

  1. 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).
  2. 2 A full record of the sale is available in the Documents section of the Archive (1794 – Item 1)

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