- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Ship Anchored off the Coast
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 11 × 19.6 cm, 4 ⅜ × 7 ¾ in
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- Coasts and Shipping; Panoramic Format; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1294
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in July 2021
Provenance
Sotheby’s, 6 July 2010, lot 240, £27,500; Timothy Clowes; his posthumous sale, Sotheby's, 7 July 2021, lot 56, £11,340
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
The Gateway of the Bishop's Palace, Wells
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
A Distant View of Southampton
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bursledon Ferry on the River Hamble, near Southampton
Private Collection
The Hamble River, near Southampton
Private Collection
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
Leeds City Art Gallery
The Market Rooms, Weymouth
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Private Collection
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds City Art Gallery
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Private Collection
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Private Collection
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral, from the South
Koriyama City Museum of Art
On the River Exe, Exeter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shaldon, Seen from Teignmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Sharpham House on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
Private Collection
The Estuary of the River Taw
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop's Palace
Private Collection
St Vincent's Rocks from Nightingale Valley, near Bristol
Private Collection
Bristol Cathedral, from College Green
Private Collection
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Bristol Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
Tate, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly a West-Country Tor
Tate, London
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
A House Reflected in the Waters of an Estuary
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
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About this Work
In the absence of any inscription or any distinguishable topographical features, it has not been possible to identify the location of this small coastal scene. However, the treatment of the foreground bears some resemblance to the on-the-spot colour sketch The Estuary of the River Taw (TG1281) whilst the hills in the distance are close in their colouring to a south-coast view, The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below (TG1250), suggesting that we are looking at a scene in the West Country. Girtin’s visit to Devon and Dorset in the autumn of 1797 resulted in more coastal scenes than at any time in his career, and these include a number of smaller unidentified views that, like this example, may have been made later in the studio, such as An Unidentified Estuary (TG1293). This view of a ship at anchor, like the extended panoramic scene of a similar stretch of coastline in An Unidentified Estuary, is, I suspect, too carefully worked to have been made in the field. The foreground is certainly washed in rapidly in a way associated with a sketch coloured on the spot, but the distant hills have been built up with layers of different tones, each of which would have been left to dry before work continued. Sometime around 1796, Girtin began to produce a new type of commodity in the studio, small in scale and with a sketch-like character that might appeal to a type of collector who appreciated the informality and spontaneous quality of the on-the-spot studies coloured in the field. Although not so heavily worked as An Unidentified Estuary, this is what I think we have here. And, as a simulacrum of a Girtin sketch, the commodity works best as a generic coastal scene, rather than a portrait of a place.
(?) 1797
The Estuary of the River Taw
TG1281
(?) 1797
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
TG1250
1798 - 1799
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
TG1293