- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 13.2 × 17.3 cm, 5 ¼ × 6 ¾ in
- Inscription
‘T. Girtin Conway’ on the back, not in Girtin’s hand
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work; Visible Fold in the Paper
- Subject Terms
- North Wales; River Scenery
-
- Catalogue Number
- TG1348
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 263 as '"Conway"'; '1798'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
P & D Colnaghi & Co., 1949; Gilbert Davis (1899–1983); bought from him by the Gallery, 1959
Exhibition History
Huntington, 1993, no catalogue
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
Interior View of the Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This small watercolour was titled ‘Conwy’ by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak in their catalogue of Girtin’s watercolours, though it appears to show the same bridge over the river Dee that is depicted in an on-the-spot colour sketch that is inscribed ‘Scene near Corwen … 16 Augt 1798’ (TG1347) (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.263). The inscription on the back of this drawing, which reads ‘T Girtin Conwy’, is incorrect, therefore, and it is presumably not by the artist, and the fact that Girtin and Loshak added inverted commas to their title suggests that they also doubted the identification of the bridge as being located on the road between Conwy and Benarth. The probable identification of the scene and its link to the return leg of Girtin’s journey to North Wales also help to allay any doubts about the attribution of a work that is in poor condition, since the watercolour’s faded state has left the artist’s distinctive pencil work showing up prominently.
Almost as problematic is the specific function of a work that Girtin and Loshak dated to 1798, presumably on the grounds that they thought that it was made on the spot during Girtin’s trip to North Wales in that year. However, although the work is executed on a piece of paper with the same dimensions as the Corwen view, which alone of all the artist’s on-the-spot colour sketches is dated, I suspect that this watercolour was actually made in the studio. This is confirmed by the inclusion of a series of figure groups and a coach and horses, narrative elements indicating that an element of planning went into the work. The foregrounds of Girtin’s on-the-spot sketches include only the sketchiest figures, and then only rarely, and, as with the view of Corwen, they are never carefully delineated as here. In fact, the two views of the Dee could not be better calculated to illustrate the distinction between the colour sketch executed by the artist with dispatch on the spot as part of his working practice, and a studio production that apes the informal characteristics of the former but that might be sold to collectors appreciative of Girtin’s more spontaneous studies.
Another view of what appears to be the same bridge, though taken from a different viewpoint, has been attributed to Girtin under the title Landscape with Bridge (see figure 1). It has not yet been possible to confirm the authorship of the work, but my first impressions are that it is not by Girtin and that any resemblance to the Corwen subjects is probably coincidental.
1798
The River Dee, near Corwen
TG1347