- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
- Date
- 1795 - 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 15.9 × 19 cm, 6 ¼ × 7 ½ in
- Inscription
‘on the Road to Harrow on the Hill’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- London and Environs; Picturesque Vernacular; Rural Labour
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1389
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2014
Provenance
Sir John Clermont Witt (1907–82); ... Sotheby’s, 9 March 1989, lot 7 as 'A Haystack on a Farm, near Harrow', £825; Sotheby’s, 14 November 1996, lot 132, unsold; Christie's, South Kensington, 2 December 2014, lot 171, £938
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 simple sketch of a rural scene close to London has been dated to 1794, presumably on the grounds that Girtin’s only other view of the village of Harrow is inscribed with that date (TG0187). Uniquely amongst Girtin’s early sketches, there are also two small sheets that are inscribed with the date 1794 (TG0186 and TG0188), but they have nothing in common with this work, which was probably executed several years later. Harrow is only sixteen kilometres from central London, so it was easily accessible for artists in search of picturesque subjects in an area that was not to lose its rural character until well into the nineteenth century. Girtin’s near contemporary Robert Hills (1769–1844) was just one of many landscape artists who found the village and the farms on the route from London to be a rich resource for their rural subjects, and his sketch from a few years later may even show the same farm building featured in Girtin’s sketch (see figure 1). Certainly, there is no reason to doubt Girtin’s inscription on the drawing, though it is unlikely that Harrow was the sole object of his attention on his journey out of London. The village would have been on Girtin’s route to Cassiobury (TG1571), the home of his later patron George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex (1757–1839), and nearby Bushey appears to have been the subject of his attention around 1800–1801. This drawing feels earlier in date, however, and the greater likelihood is that Girtin sketched it on a visit to the county, probably in 1796, when he made a number of studies of St Albans in preparation for his major exhibition watercolour of the interior of the abbey church (TG1040).
1794
Harrow-on-the-Hill
TG0187
1794
A Cloud Study
TG0186
1794
Jedburgh Abbey, from the Riverbank
TG0188
1800 - 1801
The Sawmill, Cassiobury Park
TG1571
1796
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
TG1040