This view of a fishing smack in the harbour at Dover with its sails drying at the side displays many of the signs that mark the unique collaboration between Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Here the two artists were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to copy ‘the outlines or unfinished drawings of’ principally John Robert Cozens (1752–97), but other artists too, including the patron’s neighbour, the amateur John Henderson (1764–1843), who lent his ‘outlines for this purpose’ (Farington, Diary, 30 December 1794). Henderson visited Dover in the autumn of 1794 and the ‘outlines of Shipping & Boats’ he made there, described by the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) as ‘Very ingenious & careful’, provided the basis for a substantial number of copies commissioned by Monro (Farington, Diary, 1 December 1795). As with the copies the artists made after the sketches of Cozens, ‘Girtin drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’, with Turner receiving ‘3s. 6d each night’ though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).¹

Girtin is not known to have visited Dover and all of his views of the town were copied after secondary sources, including his master, Edward Dayes (1763–1804). However, whilst Turner travelled to the port in 1793 and executed a series of studio watercolours after his own sketches, the majority of the Dover subjects sold from Monro’s collection, numbering as many as a hundred, were still produced after the work of other artists (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 26 June 1833; Christie’s, 1 July 1833). The source for this work has not been traced, but comparisons with the sketches used by the Monro School artists in the production of other port views – such as Dover Harbour: Fishing Vessels, Their Sails Drying (TG0798), which displays a similar fascination with the minutiae of marine labour – suggest that it was an outline drawing by Henderson. The amateur’s numerous Dover views are essentially variations on a set of themes, with the same vessels, buildings, views and naval operations returning in different combinations, and it is a measure of their skill that both Turner and Girtin were able to create from this unpromising source a unified body of work that includes sufficient variety to maintain interest levels. The motif of the fishing vessel, resting up after a trip with its sails drying out, recurs in a number of views, including A Boat on the Shore, near Shakespeare Cliff (TG0797), whilst the same setting, if not the same boat, is to be seen in Dover Harbour: A Boat under Repair (TG0826).

All of the views of Dover sold at Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833 were attributed to Turner alone, but, despite the fact that the joint authorship of the Monro School subjects has become increasingly the norm following the publication of Andrew Wilton’s pioneering article in 1984, this work is still listed as solely by Turner in the online catalogue of the collections at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). Neither the pencil work nor the economical addition of a limited palette of greys and blues to the outlines is of the highest quality, but there is no reason to suspect that this is not the joint work of Girtin and Turner, and whatever shortcomings there are can be put down to the time constraints the artists worked under at Monro’s house. The work is comparable with another view of fishing boats, Beached Fishing Vessels in the Harbour at Dover (TG0820), where Turner’s sparing application of washes allows Girtin’s pencil work to establish surprisingly characterful figure studies and the sails, left all but untouched by the colour, also form a prominent part of the composition.

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: Fishing Vessels, Their Sails Drying

TG0798

1795 - 1796

A Boat on the Shore, near Shakespeare Cliff, Dover

TG0797

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: A Boat under Repair

TG0826

1795 - 1796

Beached Fishing Vessels in the Harbour at Dover

TG0820