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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after Unknown Artist

An Imaginary Composition with Antique Ruins and Figures

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0548: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after an Unknown Artist, An Imaginary Composition with Antique Ruins and Figures, 1794–97, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, on an early mount, 19.6 × 14.9 cm, 7 ¾ × 5 ⅞ in. Tate, Turner Bequest CCCLXXIV, 27 b (D36506).

Photo courtesy of Tate (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after Unknown Artist
Title
  • An Imaginary Composition with Antique Ruins and Figures
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper, on an early mount
Dimensions
19.6 × 14.9 cm, 7 ¾ × 5 ⅞ in
Mount Dimensions
36.8 × 48 cm, 14 ½ × 18 ⅞ in
Part of
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Italian View: Ancient Ruins

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0548
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.1233 as 'Columns of ruined temple, with figures' by Thomas Girtin; Turner Online as 'A Capriccio with Classical Ruins and Figures' by Joseph Mallord William Turner and Thomas Girtin (Accessed 07/09/2022)

About this Work

This is one of two upright compositions showing a temple portico viewed from an oblique angle that appear to have been made after the work of one of the many view painters who worked in Rome in the eighteenth century (the other composition being TG0547). The views, which are probably imaginary rather than copied from an identifiable building, 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 they 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

Ruins of Rome

This architectural study, together with what appears to be its pair (TG0547), is mounted in an album of watercolours that was bought by Turner at Monro’s posthumous sale. In a manuscript note to his catalogue of the Turner Bequest, Alexander Finberg suggested that this work might be after a composition by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691–1765) (Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1233).2 However, although Pannini produced a number of drawings that include similar details of a temple portico of the ionic order littered with fragments of antique sculpture, as well as an etching after a similar composition that was published in 1753 (see figure 1), no close match has been found. The suggestion in the online catalogue of the Turner Bequest that the two views were instead copied from the work of Charles-Louis Clérisseau (1721–1820) is more likely (Turner Online, D36507), not least because Monro’s sale included an item listed as ‘Architecture, by Clerisseau, a pair’ (Christie’s, 28 June 1833, lot 32). He is certainly a more probable candidate than John Robert Cozens (1752–97), who was invariably the source for other Roman scenes. Architectural and sculptural fragments, together with figures exploring the city’s ancient ruins, seem to have held little attraction for Cozens, unlike view painters such as Pannini and Clérisseau.

The album of Monro School drawings sold in 1833 was described as containing the work of Turner, but Finberg was inclined to believe that Girtin alone was responsible for the watercolours, whilst more recently Andrew Wilton has established their joint authorship (Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1233; Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). Identifying the division of labour within Monro School drawings is considerably helped, as here, when the colour washes leave much of the pencil work showing through. An architectural subject generally requires a more detailed underdrawing than a landscape, and in this case Girtin’s inventive and fluent hand is clearly apparent under the monochrome washes. If anything, the economy of the application of the washes and the attractive patterns that result from the rapid addition of darker tones to a light ground suggest that this part of the production process may have been undertaken by Girtin as well, though, as with TG0547, this is far from clear-cut.

1794 - 1797

A Detail of the Portico of an Ancient Temple

TG0547

1794 - 1797

A Detail of the Portico of an Ancient Temple

TG0547

1794 - 1797

A Detail of the Portico of an Ancient Temple

TG0547

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).
  2. 2 Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain

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