- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Landscape with Figures by Railings
- Date
- 1798 - 1802
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 23 × 16.6 cm, 9 × 6 ½ in
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- Unidentified Landscape
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1532
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 214 as 'Landscape Seen Across a River'; 'c. 1797'
- Description Source(s)
- Museum Website
Provenance
Randall Davies (1866–1946); his posthumous sale, Sotheby's, 11 February 1947, lot 237b (one of four) as 'Landscape with two figures leaning on a rail'; bought by P & D Colnaghi & Co., £32; Sir Bruce Stirling Ingram (1877–1963); his posthumous sale, Sotheby’s, 9 December 1964, lot 264; bought by Christopher Powney, £320; Cornish Torbock (1905–93); his posthumous sale, Sotheby's, 14 April 1994a, lot 32 as 'Attributed to' Thomas Girtin, £115; Martyn Gregory Ltd, 1995; bought by the Museum, 2002
Exhibition History
Colnaghi's, 1956, no.33; Martyn Gregory, London, 1995, no.48 as ’circle of’ Thomas Girtin
Bibliography
Museum Website 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 North West
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, New York
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
Westminster Abbey, Seen from Green Park and the Queen's Basin
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
Private Collection
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Turver’s Farm, Radwinter
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
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, The University of Manchester
Tintern Village, Seen across the Forge Pond, Formerly 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
Effingham Churchyard, Formerly Known as 'A Country Churchyard'
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
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, New York
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Study of a Woman Reading; A Slight Study of a Seated Woman
Private Collection
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
The Head of a Youth, Here Identified as Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This upright landscape was included by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak in their catalogue of Girtin’s watercolours, though at more recent sales it has been demoted to the status of merely ‘Attributed to’ or ‘circle of’ the artist (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.163). The earlier cataloguers of Girtin’s works dated it to around 1797 and titled it ‘Landscape Seen across a River’, thereby neatly highlighting the problem with the watercolour, because it is by no means clear that the area of colour beyond the railings actually represents a body of water with its reflections. The effectiveness of the work may have been compromised by fading, but this area of flat colour, like the fields beyond, creates little or no sense of recession, and the foliage is lacking any sense of depth. The tall, spindly tree in the foreground is particularly unconvincing and seems to have been added later, as the railings show through the trunk and the diagonal branch disappears where it crosses the hedge in the middle ground. Areas in the distance include attractive patterns, suggesting that the artist was at least influenced by Girtin, but this work of an unknown follower has little else to recommend it, and I am left wondering how an earlier generation of Girtin scholars could ever have thought this was an autograph work.