- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Distant View of Rievaulx Abbey
- Date
- 1796 - 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper (watermark: WHATMAN)
- Dimensions
- 9.7 × 12.8 cm, 3 ⅞ × 5 in
- Inscription
‘Bolton Abbey. York’ lower left, by (?) Thomas Girtin; ‘T. Girtin’ lower right in brown ink, by Thomas Girtin (the signature has been cut, suggesting that it once extended onto an original mount which has been lost)
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Monastic Ruins; Yorkshire View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1055
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 157 as 'Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire'; 'Water-Colour Sketch'; 'Probably 1796'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Elhanan Bicknell (1788–1861); his posthumous sale, Christie’s, 29 April 1863, lot 6 as 'Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire - a sketch'; bought by 'Noseda', £1 2s; Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960); given to Tom Girtin (1913–94), c.1938; bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975
Exhibition History
Cambridge, 1920, no.37 as ’Bolton’; New Haven, 1986a, no.45 as ’Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire’
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1796 Northern Tour to Yorkshire, the North East and the Scottish Borders:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Bamburgh Castle, from the South
Cragside House, Northumberland (National Trust)
Durham Cathedral, from the South West
British Museum, London
The Ouse Bridge, York, from the North Shore
British Museum, London
The Ouse Bridge, York, from Skeldergate Postern
York Art Gallery
York: The New Walk on the Banks of the Ouse
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection
York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection
York Minster, from the Ouse, with St Mary’s Abbey
Harewood House, Yorkshire
The South Side of York Minster, Showing the Transept and the Western Towers
Private Collection, Yorkshire
York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
British Museum, London
Unidentified Gothic Ruins, Said to Be St Mary’s Abbey, York
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Private Collection
A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Harewood House, Yorkshire
A Distant View of Rievaulx Abbey
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Private Collection
Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Manchester Art Gallery
Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
British Museum, London
Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool
Richmond Castle and Town, from the South East
Private Collection
Barnard Castle, from the River Tees
British Museum, London
Egglestone Abbey, from the River Tees
Gallery Oldham
Egglestone Abbey, on the River Tees
British Museum, London
Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Private Collection, Norfolk
Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir; Dryburgh Abbey with the Eildon Hills Beyond
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Durham Cathedral, from the South West
Private Collection
St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle upon Tyne
Private Collection
Tynemouth Priory, from the Coast
Cleveland Museum of Art
Bothal Castle, from the River Wansbeck
Private Collection
A River Scene with a Tower, Said to Be the Tyne near Hexham
Leeds Art Gallery
Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Private Collection, Norfolk
The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Castle Beyond
Untraced Works
Dunstanburgh Castle, Viewed from a Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
An Interior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Lindisfarne: The Nave and Crossing of the Priory Church
British Museum, London
An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Private Collection
Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept Looking North
Private Collection
Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept from the Cloister
Private Collection
Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown
Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Cooper Gallery, Barnsley
Melrose Abbey, from the North East
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
Jedburgh Abbey, from the North East
Private Collection
Jedburgh Abbey, from Jed Water
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
British Museum, London
The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
Private Collection, Bedfordshire
The West Front of Jedburgh Abbey
British Museum, London
Jedburgh Abbey, from the South East
Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust)
The Ruins of the Lady Chapel, near Bothal
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bamburgh Castle, from the Village
Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Ltd
St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle upon Tyne
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool
Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
Private Collection
An Interior View of Fountains Abbey: The East Window from the Presbytery
Graves Gallery, Sheffield
St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent
Untraced Works
York: Pavement, Looking towards All Saints
Private Collection
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About this Work
This distant view of Rievaulx Abbey, seen from the north west, appears to have been coloured on the spot, and both Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak and Susan Morris date it to the artist’s first northern tour, in 1796 (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.155; Morris, 1986, p.41). However, David Hill has noted that Rievaulx ‘would have been out of the line of sites that we know him to have visited in 1796’ and, pointing to the fact that Girtin exhibited two views of the abbey at the 1798 exhibition, including TG1056, he suggested that Girtin might have sketched the abbey in 1797, possibly at the time of his first visit to Harewood House (Hill, 1999, pp.22–23). There is no documentary evidence to substantiate the latter event, however, and, as with many of the sketches of Yorkshire, it is therefore simply not possible to conclusively assign this work to a precise date.
Whatever the date of its production, the work’s status as a sketch coloured on the spot seems pretty secure. Its small scale and the evident speed of its creation – with rapidly applied washes of colour in a limited palette recording the play of light on the building but leaving other areas undetermined – point to a sketch produced in the field. The fact that the inscription to the left, reading ‘Bolton Abbey. York’, is palpably incorrect does not undermine the argument either. Whilst the error might be explained as the fault of a later owner who added the inscription in ignorance, I suspect that it is in the same hand as the signature to the right, which I take to be by Girtin, and that both were added when the artist was preparing the drawing for sale at a later date. If that is the case, then the fact that the signature has been cut at the bottom may constitute significant evidence about the market for Girtin’s sketches towards the end of his career. The manner in which part of the signature has been lost suggests that it originally strayed onto a mount that was subsequently removed, so that it appears that the artist himself took an earlier coloured sketch and mounted, signed and inscribed it prior to a sale. A time gap of five or so years might therefore account for Girtin’s error in titling the work ‘Bolton Abbey’. We can perhaps get an idea of the sketch’s original appearance as a mounted image from what I take to be one of the few surviving examples of this way of presenting his drawings, Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale (TG1063), though this has yet to be confirmed by proper technical analysis of the materials used.
(?) 1798
Rievaulx Abbey
TG1056
(?) 1796
Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
TG1063