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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) John Robert Cozens

A Waterfall amongst Woods on a Mountainside

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0764: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after (?) John Robert Cozens (1752–97), A Waterfall amongst Woods on a Mountainside, 1794–97, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, on an early mount, 18.6 × 24.2 cm, 7 ⅜ × 9 ⅝ in. Tate, Turner Bequest CCCLXXIV, 12 (D36489).

Photo courtesy of Tate (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
Title
  • A Waterfall amongst Woods on a Mountainside
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper, on an early mount
Dimensions
18.6 × 24.2 cm, 7 ⅜ × 9 ⅝ in
Mount Dimensions
36.8 × 48 cm, 14 ½ × 18 ⅞ in
Part of
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Unidentified Landscape

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0764
Description Source(s)
Viewed in November 2017

Provenance

Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 28 June 1833, lot 79 as 'Twenty-six sketches in Switzerland and Italy, by Turner, in blue and Indian ink, in a scrap-book'; bought by Thomas Griffith for Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), £10 10s; accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest, 1856

Bibliography

Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1232 as 'Waterfall among mountains'; Wilton, 1984a, p.16; Turner Online as 'The Bank of a Lake or River with Hills Beyond' by Joseph Mallord William Turner and Thomas Girtin 

(Accessed 09/09/2022)

About this Work

This unidentified landscape is mounted in an album of watercolours that was bought by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at the posthumous sale of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 28 June 1833, lot 79). The twenty-six drawings were the outcome of a unique collaboration between Girtin and Turner working together at Monro’s London home at the Adelphi. Here the artists were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’ and other artists, amateur and professional, either from Monro’s collection or lent for the purpose. As the two young artists later recalled, Girtin generally ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’, which may account for the generally monochrome appearance of the works, and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1

The majority of the works in the album of ‘sketches in Switzerland and Italy’ were carefully inscribed with the scene’s location, but not this one. Given that the topography is far from distinctive, it is unlikely that the subject will be traced, and indeed it is not even possible to determine which country, Switzerland or Italy, is the more likely. The majority of the subjects included in the album, which was presumably assembled by Monro himself, are after known works by John Robert Cozens (1752–97), and that is likely to be the case here too, though an exhaustive search of his surviving watercolours and drawings has not turned up the source.

Establishing the division of labour within a Monro School drawing is considerably helped, as here, when the colour washes leave much of the pencil work showing through. Although the nature of the subject did not require much detail, Girtin’s hand is apparent under Turner’s economical use of a simple monochrome palette.

by Greg Smith

Footnotes

  1. 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).

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