- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
- Date
- (?) 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 23 × 31 cm, 9 × 12 ¼ in
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- River Scenery; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
(TG1242)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1243
- Description Source(s)
- Auction Catalogue
Provenance
Francis John Bramstone Beckford (b.1844); then by descent to a Lady; her sale, Sotheby’s, 12 July 1984, lot 104 as 'View of a Bridge Across a River with a Church Tower and Hills Behind', unsold; Sotheby’s, 21 November 1985, lot 114
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, The 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 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, The University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds 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 on the River Dart
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
National Gallery of Art, Washington
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
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About this Work
This is the slightly larger of two versions of a view of a bridge with an unidentified village beyond and a distant hill with what seems to be a chapel in silhouette (the other being TG1242). The distant hill bears some resemblance to Glastonbury Tor, and one possibility is that this view shows St Michael’s Tower on the hill in Somerset. It was once thought that Girtin painted two views of Glastonbury Abbey (TG1106 and TG1110) but these turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, having now been shown to depict Lindisfarne Priory church, and it now seems unlikely that the artist broke his journey on his return from the West Country in 1797 to sketch such a view. In any case, it made more sense to concentrate efforts to identify the scene on another West Country site that Girtin is definitely known to have visited in 1797, Abbotsbury in Dorset. The building on the hill indeed does look like a side-on view of the early fifteenth-century St Catherine’s Chapel, a building that can be seen in the background of Girtin’s first view of Abbotsbury (TG0146), dating from 1792–93, which was made from a sketch by the amateur artist James Moore (1762–99) (see TG0146 figure 1). However, I have not been able to locate a two-arched bridge that might fit in with the local topography and, although the view does have a pronounced West Country feel, I suspect that we will need to find a sketch inscribed with the subject in order to make any further progress. What is particularly frustrating is that this work may, as Susan Morris has suggested, be the on-the-spot sketch on which the more finished watercolour (TG1242) is based (Morris, 1986, p.42). No inscription is recorded, however, and since the work is known only as a black and white photograph, it has not been possible to confirm its status as a study coloured on the spot either.
1797 - 1798
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
TG1242
1797 - 1798
Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
TG1106
1797 - 1798
An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
TG1110
1792 - 1793
The Tithe Barn at Abbotsbury, with St Catherine’s Chapel on the Hill
TG0146
1797 - 1798
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
TG1242