- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
- Title
-
- A Narrow Gorge Leading to the Grande Chartreuse
- Date
- 1794 - 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 23.5 × 18 cm, 9 ¼ × 7 in
- Object Type
- Collaborations; Monro School Copy
- Subject Terms
- French View: The Alps
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1358
- Description Source(s)
- Auction Catalogue
Provenance
Colonel Josiah Wilkinson; his posthumous sale, Christie's, 26 February 1912, lot 40 as 'A Rocky Ravine' by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought with TG0718 by 'Nevile', £9 9s; ... Mrs V. M. Young; her sale, Sotheby’s, 20 November 1986, lot 89 as 'Attributed to' Thomas Girtin, unsold; Sotheby's 30 April 1987, lot 175 as 'Attributed to' Thomas Girtin, unsold
Place depicted
Other entries in Monro School Copies:
Italian Views after Drawings by John Robert Cozens Made on the Second Italian Trip, 1782–83

The Temple of Venus at Baia
Private Collection

Entering the Tyrol: Unidentified Buildings amongst Wooded Hills
Tate, London

An Unidentified Fortress: Entering the Tyrol Region
Private Collection

A View on the River Inn, in the Tyrol
Tate, London

Innsbruck: St Anna's Column on Maria-Theresien Street
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A Tree-Lined Valley, near Innsbruck
Private Collection

A Church Tower in the Valley of the Isarco, near Sterzing, in the Tyrol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The Euganean Hills, Seen from the Walls of Padua
Tate, London

Part of Padua, Seen from the Walls
Private Collection

The Abbey of Santa Giustina at Padua
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The View from Mirabello, the Villa of Count Algarotti in the Euganean Hills
Private Collection

A Convent on Monte della Madonna in the Euganean Hills
Tate, London

Fano, on the Adriatic Coast
Private Collection

Terracina: The View from the Inn, with the Temple of Jupiter Anxur
Tate, London

Naples: The Villa Belvedere, Seen from Sir William Hamilton's Villa at Posillipo
Private Collection

Naples: The View from Sir William Hamilton's Villa at Portici
Private Collection

Portici: Mounts Somma and Vesuvius, from the Myrtle Plantation at Sir William Hamilton’s Villa
Tate, London

Naples: Solimena’s Villa and Pine Trees
Private Collection

Portici: The Fortress in the Royal Park, Looking towards Mounts Somma and Vesuvius
Tate, London

Portici: The Imperial Minister's Villa, near the Harbour of Granatello
Private Collection

Portici: The View from Sir William Hamilton's Villa, with Vesuvius in the Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Portici: The Royal Palace, from the Park
Tate, London

The Coast at Portici, with the Villa d'Elboeuf in the Foreground and the Harbour of Granatello Beyond
Private Collection

The Coast at Salerno, with Arechi Castle Overlooking the Town
Private Collection

The View from Salerno, Looking towards Vietri sul Mare
Tate, London

An Unidentified Villa in a Valley near Vietri sul Mare
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Salerno: An Ancient Cypress in the Garden of the Franciscan Convent
Tate, London

The Coast at Vietri sul Mare, from near Salerno
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Torre Crestarella at Vietri sul Mare, with Salerno in the Distance
Private Collection

The Cantilena Convent, near Vietri sul Mare
Tate, London

The Cantilena Convent, near Vietri sul Mare
Private Collection

The Convent of San Francesco at Cava de' Tirreni
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Naples: The Fifteenth-Century City Walls, with the Dome of Santa Caterina a Formiello
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

View from the Road Leading to the Scuola di Virgilio, Showing Nisida, the Islands of Ischia and Procida, and the Promontory of Miseno
Private Collection, Norfolk

The Bay of Porto Paone, a Flooded Crater in the Islet of Nisida
Private Collection

Ancient Ruins on the Coast near the Point of Posillipo
Tate, London

Naples: The View from an Enclosed Road at Posillipo
Tate, London

Posillipo: The Palazzo di Roccella on the Shore
Private Collection

The Amphitheatre at Capua
Tate, London

A Ferry Crossing a River, on the Road between Eboli and Paestum
Tate, London

The View towards Salerno from the Road to Eboli
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Naples: Castel Sant'Elmo
Tate, London

The Royal Park at Astroni
Private Collection

Lake Agnano, Seen from Astroni
Private Collection

Naples: An Unidentified Convent, with Vesuvius in the Distance
Tate, London

Naples: A Range of Convents near Capodimonte, Including the Chinese College
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The Vanvitelli Aqueduct, near Caserta
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart

The Royal Palace at Caserta, Seen from the Road to the Vanvitelli Aqueduct
Private Collection

The Convent of Santa Lucia, near Caserta
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

The Convent of Santa Lucia, near Caserta
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Ancient Ruins near the River Garigliano, Gaeta in the Distance
Private Collection

Florence: The Palazzo Vecchio, Seen from the Cascine Park
Tate, London

Florence: The Convent of Monte Oliveto, from the Banks of the Arno
Horne Museum, Florence

Florence: The Convent of Monte Oliveto, from the Banks of the Arno
Private Collection

A Villa on the Banks of the River Arno, Known as the Villa Salviati
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Building amongst Trees, on the River Arno near Florence
Sphinx Fine Art, London

A View on the River Arno, with a Tower on a Hill
Tate, London

Florence: The Palazzo Vecchio from the Boboli Gardens, with Fiesole in the Distance
Harrow School, London

Florence: The View from the Boboli Gardens across the Valley of the Arno
Private Collection

An Unidentified Villa, between Florence and Bologna
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Wooded Shoreline on Lake Maggiore
Tate, London

Angera: The Borromeo Castle Overlooking Lake Maggiore
Tate, London

The Castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore
Private Collection

Lake Maggiore, from the Shore
Private Collection

Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore
Private Collection

Lake Maggiore, from Isola Bella
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Distant View of the Grande Chartreuse
Private Collection

Buildings on a Promontory on the Coast at Posillipo
Private Collection

The Marmore Falls, near Terni
Private Collection

A Narrow Gorge Leading to the Grande Chartreuse
Private Collection

Florence: The View from the Grand Duke's Garden
Private Collection
Footnotes
- 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).
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About this Work
This view of a narrow gorge leading to the Grande Chartreuse, the extensive monastery deep in the French Alps, was copied from a composition by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) (see source image above). Although it has not been possible to trace an image of the work, it appears from the 1987 auction catalogue that it was one of several hundred watercolours produced at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Here Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’. The resulting watercolours saw the two artists engaged in a unique collaboration; as they later recalled, Girtin ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’, and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1
Monro’s posthumous sale, in 1833, contained only twenty or so sketches by Cozens, so the patron must have borrowed the majority of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings’ copied by Girtin and Turner. In this case, the source of the watercolour, a simple outline inscribed ‘Leading to the Grand Chartreuse – Octr-24.’, was almost certainly purchased at Cozens’ studio sale in July 1794 by Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827). As Kim Sloan has noted, Beaumont mounted ‘215 “tracings” or drawings on oiled paper’ in an album that he presumably lent to Monro, and it was from this collection, now at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, that the two young artists produced more than fifty watercolours (Sloan and Joyner, 1993, pp.89–91). The source drawing was therefore traced by Cozens from his own on-the-spot sketch made on the return from his second visit to Italy, in 1783, when he travelled to the isolated Carthusian monastery high in the mountains at the behest of his patron William Beckford (1760–1844) (Bell and Girtin, 1935, no.423). The sketch is contained in the last of the seven sketchbooks that survive from the trip (The Whitworth, Manchester (D.1975.10.11)) and it was presumably traced by Cozens because the books were retained by Beckford. The spectacular setting of the monastery provided the subject for another Monro School watercolour, A Distant View of the Grande Chartreuse (TG0760).
The bulk of the works sold at Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833 were attributed to Turner alone, and this was the case here when the work was first sold at auction in 1912, though more recently it appeared on the art market as ‘Attributed to Girtin’. With no extant image of the work to hand, there is nothing that can be said about the change of attribution other than that at this point there is no reason to suspect that the work was not the product of the same division of labour that the two artists described themselves to Farington in 1798.
1794 - 1797
A Distant View of the Grande Chartreuse
TG0760