- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Study of a Woman Sewing
- Date
- 1795 - 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on laid paper (watermark: ornamented Post Horn / GR / 1794)
- Dimensions
- 22.7 × 18.6 cm, 8 ¹⁵⁄₁₆ × 7 ½ in
- Inscription
‘Mr Girtin’s compliment to Dr Monro / and if convenient to that Gentleman - / whould wish to postpone his visit to / Sunday’; ‘Dr Monro’ on the back, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Figure Study
-
- Collection
-
- Courtauld Gallery, London
- (D.1952.RW.271)
- Catalogue Number
- TG0917
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 220 as 'A Lady Seated at a Table Sewing'; '1794–7'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); ... Archdeacon Charles Parr Burney (1786–1864); P & D Colnaghi & Co.; Dr John Percy (1817–89) ('thrown in with other things which I bought of them'); his posthumous sale, Christie’s, 17 April 1890, lot 508, 9s; Dr Edward Riggall (1817–1900); his posthumous sale, Sotheby’s, 4 July 1901, lot 79 (3 in the lot); bought by 'Orback', £7 15s; ... Squire Gallery, London; Sir Robert Clermont Witt (1872–1952), by 1935; bequeathed to the Gallery, 1952
Bibliography
Kitton, 1887, p.361
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
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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
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
Hawes Fine Art
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, University of Manchester
A House Seen across a Lake, 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
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 informal figure study of a young woman sewing is found on the back of a short letter that Girtin sent to his patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). It reads, complete with eccentric spelling, ‘Mr Girtin’s compliment to Dr Monro and if convenient to that Gentleman – whould wish to postpone his visit to Sunday’. It is folded in such a way that when Monro opened the letter, which is addressed to him in Girtin’s most florid writing style, he might have received the sketch as a form of apology for the delay to his visit. Sadly, the letter is not dated and it is also not clear whether the drawing had any particular significance for Monro. I have always assumed, though with no evidence, that the woman was sketched at Monro’s home and that Girtin was returning the image to his patron. But it is equally possible that the drawing records something of the artist’s own domestic arrangements. Girtin gave his address in the catalogues of the Royal Academy’s annual exhibitions in 1795 and 1797 as St Martin’s-le-Grand, and it therefore seems that at this time he was still living with his mother, who did not remarry after her first husband’s death until 1799, though he also seems to have rented a studio space elsewhere. The woman shown sewing in the sketch appears to be too young to be Girtin’s mother, Rosehanna Girtin (unknown dates), but it may depict the artist’s sister, Mary, who was born in 1777. The very limited number of figure studies executed by Girtin include a high percentage of family members engaged in domestic tasks and, as the artist did not study at the schools of the Royal Academy, sketching the figure tended to be a social activity separate from his professional activity as a landscape painter. The small-scale figures that Girtin used to populate his landscapes required different skills and might be learnt, it seems, from copying the work of other artists.
On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as an off-white laid writing paper by an unknown English maker with the watermark ‘Ornamented post horn / GR / 1794’ (Bower, Report).