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Works James Moore and Thomas Girtin

A Tudor House

(?) 1795

Primary Image: TG0190a: James Moore (1762–99) and Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), A Tudor House, (?) 1795, graphite on wove paper, 17.2 × 22.4 cm, 6 ¾ × 8 ⅞ in. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford (WA1916.20.39).

Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
James Moore (1762-1799) and Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
Title
  • A Tudor House
Date
(?) 1795
Medium and Support
Graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
17.2 × 22.4 cm, 6 ¾ × 8 ⅞ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Outline Drawing
Subject Terms
Picturesque Vernacular; Unidentified Topographical View

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0190a
Description Source(s)
Viewed in 2016

Provenance

James Moore (1762–99); his widow, Mary Moore (née Howett) (d.1835); bequeathed to Anne Miller (1802–90); bequeathed to Edward Mansel Miller (1829–1912); bequeathed to Helen Louisa Miller (1842–1915); bought and presented anonymously to the Museum, 1916

Bibliography

Brown, 1982, p.473, no.1427 as by James Moore

About this Work

This pencil drawing of an unidentified Tudor house was made by Girtin’s first significant patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99). Girtin’s patron toured widely, sketching the nation’s monastic ruins, castles, Gothic churches and occasionally, as here, an outstanding domestic structure in the vernacular style. The sheet is contained in an album assembled from fifty-three drawings that were acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, from Moore’s descendants after 1912. They were catalogued by David Brown as being by Moore himself, but Brown added a note to a sketch of St Clement’s Church, Hastings (TG0308), suggesting that Girtin may also have ‘taken a hand’ in the drawing (Brown, 1982, p.471). I think it is possible to go a step further and propose that, given up to half of the drawings in the album are significantly stronger than Moore’s generally unconvincing sketches, such as Interior of the Albion Mills after the Fire (see source image TG0114), the professional artist had a ‘hand’ in many more of his patron’s outlines. The contrast in quality between the sketch of the Albion Mills and this drawing is so great, particularly in the architectural details, that it is clear that A Tudor House has been corrected and enhanced by a superior artist using a sharper and more richly toned piece of graphite. Given that Girtin used many of Moore’s drawings for his own compositions, and recognising the quality of the additional pencil work, it was therefore surely he who elaborated Moore’s on-the-spot drawing on his return to London.

Many of the drawings in the Ashmolean album were made on Moore’s trips to Sussex and Kent in 1793 and 1795, and the building featured here does resemble the half-timbered hall houses of the region. Moore was certainly taken by the picturesque mix of building materials as he made another drawing of the front of the house from a different angle (TG0190), and he commissioned Girtin to produce a watercolour of the image (TG0248). In turn, Girtin made another smaller version of the composition for Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) (TG0294).

(?) 1795

The West Tower, St Clement’s Church, Hastings; Studies of a Horse in Harness and Numerous Architectural Details

TG0308

1792 - 1793

The Albion Mills, Southwark, after the Fire

TG0114

1794 - 1795

An Ancient House, Possibly in Sussex

TG0190

1793 - 1794

An Ancient House, Possibly in Sussex

TG0248

1795 - 1796

An Ancient House

TG0294

by Greg Smith

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