- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 28 × 42 cm, 11 × 16 ½ in
- Inscription
'Sand pit. / near Loggs Hill / Widmore / Bromley / Kent' on the back of an old mount, now lost
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- Dover and Kent; Trees and Woods
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
(TG1421)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1422
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in March 2023
Provenance
Sotheby’s, 11 April 1991, lot 53, unsold; Abbott and Holder, London, 2023 (List 535 Part II, no.65)
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, 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

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
Private Collection

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, 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

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

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 rather faded drawing can be identified as showing a sandpit near Logs Hill in Widmore, Kent, on the basis of an inscription on the back of an old mount. This is not in Girtin’s handwriting, but it was presumably either based on his lost inscription or added by a collector with good local knowledge. This does not seem to have been Amelia Long, Lady Farnborough (1772–1837), the artist’s pupil and patron, however, for, though it has been suggested that this and similar scenes were made ‘during visits’ to her home, she and her husband, Charles Long, 1st Baron Farnborough (1760–1838), did not actually acquire the Bromley Hill estate until 1801, a few years after the probable date of this sketch (Exhibitions: Sotheby’s, 11 April 1991, lot 53). Other Girtin patrons, including William Wells (1768–1847) of Redleaf in Kent, whose posthumous sale included ‘A gravel pit, near Bromley, in Kent’ (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 22 January 1857, lot 313), and Elizabeth Weddell (1749–1831), were also associated with the area, but none of the works appear to have been commissioned, and it may be that the artist sketched the location on the way to or from the south coast or even on a day trip from London. Logs Hill is located only a few metres away from the old cottage in Widmore that was the subject of a major watercolour painted by Girtin around 1800–01 (TG1749), and the artist presumably sketched this at the same time, or possibly earlier, around 1798–99.
Working from a black and white image, I initially thought that this is an on-the-spot colour sketch, comparing it with Trees and Pond (TG1420) which is also said to have been sketched from nature nearby in Bromley. The foreground, in particular, is coloured with great dispatch and the lightly worked areas of vegetation seem more characteristic of Girtin’s sketching practice with the result that I tentatively concluded that it was used as the basis for a second version of the composition (TG1421). That work is known only from a very poor-quality black and white photograph, but the more carefully realised foreground suggested that it is a studio work which elaborates this drawing. However, the recent opportunity to view the work as well as the procurement of a good colour image has led to a rethink. It is now clear that the watercolour has faded so that the clouds in the sky have disappeared and, with the greens of the vegetation compromised, the sense of depth which results from the more complex procedures employed in the studio has been lost, with whole areas reduced to the sort of simple blocks of colour that commonly signify a sketch made on the spot. Careful examination, however, shows the use of stopping out which requires a degree of planning not associated with the rapidly produced sketch made in the field together with a complex build up of superimposed tones – up to three in parts of the vegetation – that would require time to complete. With its pre-faded skyscape in place, the sheet would have been worked over uniformly in a way only very rarely found in Girtin’s on-the-spot sketches. The point is not that it would have been impossible for the artist to have painted such a work out of doors to this level of completion, but that there was no reason for him to have done so. Moreover, it is actually the element of ambiguity and uncertainty which is one of Girtin’s most radical characteristics as a landscape artist as he wilfully obscured the boundaries between the sketch and the finished work to brilliant effect. Thinking again about the subject of the work, I also now wonder if the identification of the 'Sandpit' in the foreground is more related to the work's faded condition than any topographical feature.
1800 - 1801
The Old Cottage, Widmore, near Bromley
TG1749
1798 - 1799
Trees and Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
TG1420
1798 - 1799
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
TG1421