- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- John Sell Cotman (1782-1842)
- Title
-
- A House Seen across Water, Known as ‘The Mill-Pond’
- Date
- (?) 1800
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 17.8 × 26 cm, 7 × 10 ¼ in
- Object Type
- Formerly attributed to Thomas Girtin; Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Picturesque Vernacular; Unidentified Topographical View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1434
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 216 as '"The Mill-Pond"' by Thomas Girtin; '1797'
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin Archive Photograph
Provenance
Isaac Horrop; Christie’s, 28 May 1926, lot 8 as 'A River Scene'; R. F. Goldschmidt; Christie’s, 26 June 1941, lot 39 as 'Yorkshire Dale'; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, £21; Winifred M. Church; her sale, Sotheby's, 4 May 1949, lot 3 as 'The Millpond'; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, £130 (stock no.5898); Sir John Stuart Agnew, 3rd Baronet (1879–1957) (Girtin and Loshak, 1954)
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1942, no.57, £55; Agnew’s, 1943, no.74, £47 5s; Agnew’s, 1950, no.91, £150; Agnew’s, 1952, no.57; Agnew’s, 1953a, no.85 as by Thomas Girtin
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
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 Water, 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
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About this Work
This view of a house seen across a small lake is known only from a poor-quality black and white photograph, but even from this it is possible to challenge the title under which it has hitherto appeared: The Mill-Pond. The building is far too substantial to be a mill and the body of water appears to be ornamental; moreover, there is no obvious way in which the water might be harnessed to provide the power source for a mill. Furthermore, even though the work was confidently attributed to the artist by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak, who must have seen it on one of its many appearances at Agnew’s in the early 1950s, there are serious questions about its status as an autograph work by Girtin (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.162). The composition may resemble the view Kingswear, from Dartmouth (TG1265), but the even application of small patches of watercolour across the work does not seem right, and I am more reminded of the early work of John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), particularly in the foreground. It is hardly fair to question the attribution on the basis of a seventy-year-old photograph, but until the work reappears in public that is all we have to go on.
I am very grateful to Jeremy Yates for the suggestion that this watercolour is indeed by Cotman and that it is based on a pencil drawing, dated 2 July 1800, that shows the village of Tintern (Norwich Castle Museum (1951.235.621.B2)). A new version of this entry will appear in the September update of the site.
1797 - 1798
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
TG1265