- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Distant View of Bolton Abbey
- Date
- (?) 1800
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 14.3 × 21 cm, 5 ⅝ × 8 ¼ in
- Inscription
‘Bolton Abby Yorks’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin
- Part of
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Monastic Ruins; River Scenery; Yorkshire View
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
A Distant View of Bolton Abbey
(TG1681)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1614
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 378i as 'Bolton Abbey ... Done on the spot'; '1801'
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin Archive Photograph
Provenance
Probably bought by Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), £8; ... Henry Oppenheimer (1859–1932); Lord Mackintosh; Professor Evelyn Davison Telford (1876–1961); his posthumous sale, Sotheby’s, 14 March 1962, lot 69; bought by the Fine Art Society, London, £520
Bibliography
Hardie, 1938–39, p.90
Place depicted
Other entries in Later Sketches:
Taken on the Spot and Worked in the Studio

Mountain Scenery, Said to Be near Beddgelert (page 15, reverse, of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The Valley of the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert (page 15 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Trees in a Glade Overlooking a Lake
Private Collection

Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

An Extensive Landscape with the Ruins of Mitford Castle
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Plumpton Rocks, near Knaresborough
Private Collection

A Parkland Landscape with Cattle and Sheep
Private Collection

John Raphael Smith: 'Waiting for the Mail Coach' (mounted on page 1 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea (page 11 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The Stables, Plompton Park (page 17 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Harewood House, from the South West (page 18 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Grimbald Bridge, near Knaresborough (page 20 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The Abbey Mill, near Knaresborough (page 25 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

A Farmhouse in Malhamdale, Known as 'Kirkby Priory, near Malham' (page 26 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Sandsend (page 29 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Grimbald Crag, near Knaresborough (page 30 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

A Crag on the River Nidd (page 31 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Guisborough Priory: The Ruined East End (page 33 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe
British Museum, London

An Interior View of the Choir of Bolton Priory
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Bolton Abbey, from the River Wharfe (page 37 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Bolton Abbey: The East End of the Priory Church, from across the River Wharfe (page 38 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The East End of Bolton Priory Church (pages 38–39 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

A Distant View of Middleham Castle, with the River Ure in the Foreground (page 41 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond (page 42 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

A Village at the Bend of a River, Probably in Yorkshire (page 44 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Beached Vessels at Low Tide (page 46 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Five Craft off the Coast on a Calm Sea (page 47 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Shipping off the Coast on a Calm Sea (page 48 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The Ruins of Old Mulgrave Castle (page 49 of the Whitworth Book of Drawings)
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Mulgrave Park and Castle, from near Epsyke Farm
British Museum, London

The River Nidd between Knaresborough and Wetherby
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

Kirkstall Abbey, with a Canal Barge
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The River Nidd, between Knaresborough and Wetherby
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

The Valley of the Tweed, with Melrose Abbey in the Distance
Private Collection

A Clump of Trees by the Waterside
Private Collection

A Torrent by a Clump of Trees
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White

A River Valley and a Distant Hill Seen through Trees
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

A Shady Road Leading to Cottages
British Museum, London

A Church in a Village, Possibly at Radwinter
British Museum, London

A Building with a Tall Chimney, next to a Stream
British Museum, London

Landscape with a Farmhouse and Cottage
Private Collection

A Schooner near the Shore
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Coast Scene with Two Beached Vessels
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Shipping Study: Five Craft on a Calm Sea
British Museum, London
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About this Work
This distant view of the ruins of Bolton Priory from the river Wharfe appears to have been detached from the Whitworth Book of Drawings (TG1323, TG1324 and TG1600–1625). Opposite the missing page is an inscription that reads ‘Bolton Abbey – Color’d on the spot sold to Mr. Rogers 8£’, and this has been interpreted to refer to the poet and collector Samuel Rogers (1763–1855). The drawing matches the dimensions of the Book of Drawings, it is certainly a depiction of Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire and it does appear to have been coloured on the spot, and yet such is the unconventional nature of the book that it is not entirely clear that a second version of the subject (TG1681) is not the work referred to in the inscription. The book, which I have deliberately not referred to as a sketchbook, contains a number of different papers that, from their watermarks and their arrangement within the binding, indicate that the contents includes a mix of copies from earlier works as well as sketches made on the spot. Moreover, the latter are divided into works sketched on and across bound sheets, and others drawn on separate pieces of paper and at some point bound in; given that the end paper has a watermark of ‘1803’, its final arrangement occurred after Girtin’s death (Bower, 2002, p.141). This, I suspect, was done at the behest of the artist’s brother John Girtin (1773–1821) who appropriated material from the artist’s studio after his death including ‘4 little Books partly of sketches and partly blank paper’, a combination that accords with the unusual makeup of the book (Chancery, Income and Expenses, 1804).1 The book, if it can truly be called that, therefore performed multiple functions. Girtin’s gathering of papers included, it seems, blank sheets on which he made on-the-spot sketches, as well as existing drawings; this meant that it could also be used as a sample book for patrons to chose subjects that might be realised for them as watercolours, and it is clear that the artist also sold his sketches from here, as no fewer than sixteen pages have been cut out, including this drawing. On the latter point, however, it must be noted that the inscriptions giving details of the sale of works from the book are not definitively in Girtin’s hand and it is not inconceivable that the pages were detached by an early owner of the volume, presumably the same person who had it bound. To return to the specific problem with this work, and bearing in mind that a good proportion of the drawings are copies purporting to be on-the-spot sketches, I wonder whether the rather more worked-up version, complete with cattle in the foreground and a more dramatic sky, was not the sheet sold to Rogers. That would certainly be more in keeping with the sale price of £8, which is more than Girtin was charging for a finished studio watercolour twice the size, so the fact that the sale was specified as being of a work ‘Color’d on the spot’ is just a confirmation of the premium placed on the artist’s sketches by sympathetic patrons, rather than a trustworthy description of the artist’s sketching practice.
Unfortunately, there are no details about the early provenance of either of the sketch-like versions of the distant view of Bolton Abbey that might link one of them definitively with the sale to Rogers, and there is no alternative at this stage but to accept a degree of uncertainty. Indeed, that is arguably what will inevitably happen whenever two characteristic aspects of Girtin’s work coincide: on the one hand, the artist’s desire to efface the boundaries between the spontaneous sketch and the considered studio work and, on the other, the growing demand from the art market for examples of the artist’s direct response to nature. For the record, I have a slight preference for the opinion that this work was the drawing made on the spot, probably in the summer of 1800, and that it is the drawing sold to Rogers; however, if this catalogue were in book form, I am not sure that a second edition might not contain a different conclusion.
The Rogers connection has an added interest from the fact that the writer used Bolton Abbey as the setting for his poem ‘The Boy of Egremond’ (1819) and that Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) subsequently provided two illustrations for the 1834 edition of his Poems, one of which shows the ruined priory from the same direction (Tate Britain, Turner Bequest (CCLXXX 179)). Turner may have seen Girtin’s drawing at Rogers’ home, which he is known to have visited on many occasions, though he certainly knew the location well enough not to have needed to refer to this sketch.
1800 - 1801
A Distant View of Bolton Abbey
TG1681