- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Country Churchyard
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 23.3 × 40.9 cm, 9 ⅛ × 15 ⅞ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1447
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 295 as '"A Country Churchyard"'; '1798–9'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to George Wyndham Girtin (1836–1912) (lent to London, 1875); by a settlement to his sister, Mary Hog Barnard (1829–99); her sale, Christie’s, 31 May 1886, lot 50 as 'Gray's Tomb, Stoke Pogis Churchyard'; bought by 'Palser', £31 10s; J. Palser & Sons; bought by George Tite; then by descent to Katherine Vulliamy, née Tite; presented to the Museum, 1912
Exhibition History
London, 1875, no.28 as ’Old Church with Trees’; Cambridge, 1994, p.59
Other entries in London and the Home Counties, Together with Miscellaneous Studies and Views
Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
Great Bookham Church, from the East
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust)
The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey, from the East
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
An Interior View of St Albans Abbey, from the Crossing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Great Park: Herne’s Oak with a Herd of Deer
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Stags Fighting amongst a Herd of Deer in Windsor Great Park, with the Castle in the Distance
Private Collection
A Herd of Deer in Richmond Park
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section One: Somerset House to Blackfriars Bridge
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Two: The Surrey Bank
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
Private Collection
Westminster, from the West Corner of the Adelphi Terrace
Private Collection
The Thames with St Paul's and Blackfriars Bridge
The Morgan Library & Museum
Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
Private Collection
A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
Private Collection
A Panoramic Landscape, near Norwood
Private Collection
St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
National Gallery of Art, Washington
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Paul's Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Untraced Works
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A River Scene, with Boats
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
An Imaginary Coast Scene with the Horizontal Air Mill at Battersea
Hawes Fine Art
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A Farm with an Unidentified Windmill
Private Collection
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Private Collection, Norfolk
Trees and Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone-next-Dartford
British Museum, London
A Farmhouse in a Woodland Setting, Said to Be in Devon
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Farm Buildings, Probably in Surrey
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
A House Seen across a Lake, Known as ‘The Mill-Pond’
Private Collection
A Picturesque House Overlooking a River, with Distant Windmills
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
The West End of an Unidentified Church
Private Collection
An Unidentified Windmill, Probably in Lambeth
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
Unidentified Buildings, Herne Hill
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Study of a Sailor on Board a Ship; A Fishing Boat
Private Collection
The Frozen Watermill, from William Cowper's The Task
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Unidentified Subject, Probably from James Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian
Tate, London
The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Morgan Library & Museum
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
Private Collection
A Study of a Lion from the Tower of London
Private Collection
An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
British Museum, London
A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
A Landscape with Figures by Railings
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Self-Portrait of the Artist at Work
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Cottage and a Windmill Surrounded by Trees
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from the Thames
Private Collection
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
It has not been possible to identify the church shown in this watercolour, and I suspect that this will remain the case, as there is little distinctive architectural detail from which to identify it, and this is precisely the sort of humble structure that was commonly effaced by later Victorian rebuilding. It is one of two church views by Girtin that have been associated with Thomas Gray’s (1716–71) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) (the other being TG0858), though neither building resembles the poet’s inspiration (the graveyard at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire) or the evening scene he describes (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.174). To an earlier generation of Girtin scholars, the picturesque jumble of prominent gravestones, combined with the reclining figure seen from behind, was enough to suggest a link with Gray’s meditation on mortality and on the lives of the obscure country folk who were buried in the churchyard. This reading of the work was no doubt further encouraged by its faded state, which has seen the blues of the sky all but disappear, whilst some of the greens of the foliage have been transformed to a predominant brown tone that enhances the mood of melancholy. A touch of blue in the distance, presumably the sign of the use of a less fugitive pigment, and areas of bodycolour on the gravestones, give some indication of the deterioration that the work has undergone, which has obscured the fact that the church and the graves are actually illuminated by sunlight.
The first known owner of the watercolour was the artist’s son, Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74). He may have inherited some of his father’s works, but he also bought many more on the open market, and it is therefore unlikely that this work came directly from the artist’s studio. Amongst the works that Thomas Calvert inherited, as opposed to buying, were three views of properties in Essex that were commissioned by Girtin’s father-in-law, Phineas Borrett (1756–1843) (such as TG1414). These were presumably passed to Thomas Calvert either from his mother, Mary Ann Girtin (1781–1843) or, more probably, from Borrett himself, who died in the same year. There is just a possibility therefore, that this watercolour, which appears to date from about the same time (around 1798–99), was acquired by inheritance and that it shows an Essex scene that held some personal significance for the Girtin family.
1796 - 1797
Great Bookham Church
TG0858
(?) 1799
Turver’s Farm, Wimbish
TG1414