- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Farm with an Unidentified Windmill
- Date
- 1795 - 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 18 × 19.5 cm, 7 ⅛ × 7 ¾ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Essex View; Picturesque Vernacular; Wind and Water Mills
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1417
- Description Source(s)
- Auction Catalogue
Provenance
The Red Cross sale, Christie's, unknown date, lot 31; ... A. M. Mason; his sale, Sotheby's, 15 July 1976, lot 74 as 'The Mill' by Joseph Mallord William Turner, £1,700
Place depicted
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
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
About this Work
This view of a mill and farm buildings is known only from a black and white photograph taken when the watercolour was last seen in public, on the occasion that it appeared at auction in 1976 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851). The attribution certainly made sense, since the work depicts the same group of buildings seen in another watercolour by Turner that appeared on the art market in 2013 (see figure 1) and that appears to be an autograph work by the artist from about 1794. However, the slightly smaller view under consideration here differs considerably in its details from Turner’s watercolour, though, in turn, the details accord with another view of the same farm and mill that is titled ‘Landscape, Possibly Blackwater Estuary’ (see figure 2), presumably referring to the site in Essex. This is again only known from a poor-quality image in the Witt Library, London, so it is not possible to judge the veracity of its attribution to Girtin, but it may be by the same artist who produced this version of the composition. Working from two poor images, it is not possible to say any more at this stage than that at least one of the mill compositions might be by Girtin and that, if the mill was located on the Blackwater Estuary, the artist would have had to work from a sketch by someone else. This likewise goes for Turner, who is not known to have visited the area either.
Figure 1.
(?) Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), A Windmill with Farm Buildings and Wagons, Said to Be in Essex, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, 17 × 20.5 cm, 6 ⅝ × 8 in. Private Collection.
Digital image courtesy of Eastbourne Auctions (All Rights Reserved).