- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A View near Lyme Regis
- Date
- (?) 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on paper
- Dimensions
- 19.5 × 25.5 cm, 7 ⅝ × 10 in
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Panoramic Format; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
(TG1253)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1252
- Description Source(s)
- Online Auction Catalogue
Provenance
Lawrences, Crewkerne, 30 January 2003, lot 615 as 'Attributed to' Thomas Girtin
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
Footnotes
- 1 The financial records of the artist's brother John Girtin (1773–1821) include two loans he made to Thomas Girtin during the trip. The records are transcribed in full in the Documents section of the Archive (1804 – Item 1).
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About this Work
This panoramic view of the high ground near Lyme Regis in Dorset appeared at a minor country sale as possibly by Girtin, but as far as I can tell from a poor-quality online image which is no longer available, it is by the artist and amounts to an important addition to the group of on-the-spot sketches that he made on his West Country tour in the autumn of 1797. Girtin is documented as having been in Exeter in early November, and it seems that his visit there, to sketch an interior view of the cathedral, was preceded by a journey through Dorset that took in Weymouth and Abbotsbury, as well as Lyme Regis, where he also produced a significant on-the-spot colour study looking down to the coastal town (TG1250) (Chancery, Income and Expenses, 1804).1 This drawing also formed the basis of a watercolour (TG1253), one of a pair of panoramic views taken from a few kilometres to the north east of Lyme (the other being TG1254), and this fact alone is enough to confirm the attribution of the sketch to Girtin. On the basis of research conducted on the watercolour, we are also now in a position to identify the view shown in the drawing with some precision. Thus, as Susan Morris has shown, the view looks south east from the Iron Age hill fort at Pilsdon Pen towards Portland, in the distance on the coast (Morris, 2016, p.14). The two finished watercolours effectively link together to form a larger panoramic image, meaning that Girtin must have produced a second pencil drawing covering the view to the west, and it is to be hoped that this too will reappear.
(?) 1797
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
TG1250
1797 - 1798
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
TG1253
1797 - 1798
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
TG1254