- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Distant View of Chirk Castle
- Date
- (?) 1798
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; North Wales
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1399
- Description Source(s)
- The original known only from the print
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
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Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
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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
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Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
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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
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A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
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A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
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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
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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
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
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About this Work
This distant view by Girtin of Chirk Castle is known only from a hand-coloured engraving produced by Thales Fielding (1793–1837) in 1820, which notes that it was painted by Peter De Wint (1784–1849) ‘from a Sketch by T. Girtin’ (see the print after, above). The fact that the castle is relegated to the distance of a broad landscape, with the river Ceiriog in the foreground, suggests that Girtin made his sketch on the spot in 1798 on his tour to North Wales, rather than working from one of the antiquarian drawings that he copied prior to his own trip to the region. In fact, Chirk is close to the road along which Girtin returned from Wales, and we can be reasonably sure that the artist passed by from the fact that a sketch he made at Corwen, nearby to the west, is dated ‘16 Augt 1798’ (TG1347). Girtin’s sketch must have been made in something of a hurry, however, perhaps in a break on the return leg of his journey, as the publisher found it necessary to commission another artist to work it up into a suitable state from which it might be engraved. Thomas Compton (unknown dates) first published The Northern Cambrian Mountains; or, A Tour through North Wales, Describing the Scenery and General Character of that Romantic Country, with hand-coloured engravings after his own views, in 1817. For the second edition, in 1820, he added engravings taken from works by other artists, including Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) and De Wint, and another view after a sketch by Girtin, showing Flint Castle (see print after TG1363) (Compton, 1820).
1798
The River Dee, near Corwen
TG1347
(?) 1798
Flint Castle
TG1363