- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 16.2 × 30.4 cm, 6 ⅜ × 12 in
- Inscription
‘Girtin’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Rural Labour; Unidentified Topographical View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1523
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 338 as 'The Carter'; '1799–1800'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2018
Provenance
Samuel Woodburn (1786–1853); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 24 May 1854, lot 775 as 'A Hayfield, with a Cart'; bought by 'Hall', £4 7s; Chambers Hall (1786–1855); presented to the Museum, 1855
Bibliography
Binyon, 1898–1907, no.3; Binyon, 1900, pl.12; Bower, 2002, p.138
Other entries in London and the Home Counties, Together with Miscellaneous Studies and Views
Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
Great Bookham Church, from the East
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust)
The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey, from the East
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
An Interior View of St Albans Abbey, from the Crossing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Great Park: Herne’s Oak with a Herd of Deer
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Stags Fighting amongst a Herd of Deer in Windsor Great Park, with the Castle in the Distance
Private Collection
A Herd of Deer in Richmond Park
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section One: Somerset House to Blackfriars Bridge
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Two: The Surrey Bank
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
Private Collection
Westminster, from the West Corner of the Adelphi Terrace
Private Collection
The Thames with St Paul's and Blackfriars Bridge
The Morgan Library & Museum
Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
Private Collection
A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
Private Collection
A Panoramic Landscape, near Norwood
Private Collection
St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
National Gallery of Art, Washington
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Paul's Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Untraced Works
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A River Scene, with Boats
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
An Imaginary Coast Scene with the Horizontal Air Mill at Battersea
Private Collection
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A Farm with an Unidentified Windmill
Private Collection
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Private Collection, Norfolk
Trees and Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone-next-Dartford
British Museum, London
A Farmhouse in a Woodland Setting, Said to Be in Devon
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Farm Buildings, Probably in Surrey
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
Tintern Village, Seen across the Forge Pond, Formerly Known as ‘The Mill-Pond’
Private Collection
A Picturesque House Overlooking a River, with Distant Windmills
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
The West End of an Unidentified Church
Private Collection
An Unidentified Windmill, Probably in Lambeth
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
Unidentified Buildings, Herne Hill
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Study of a Sailor on Board a Ship; A Fishing Boat
Private Collection
The Frozen Watermill, from William Cowper's The Task
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Unidentified Subject, Probably from James Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian
Tate, London
The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Morgan Library & Museum
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
Private Collection
A Study of a Lion from the Tower of London
Private Collection
An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
British Museum, London
A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
A Landscape with Figures by Railings
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Self-Portrait of the Artist at Work
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Cottage and a Windmill Surrounded by Trees
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from the Thames
Private Collection
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This panoramic landscape is something of an anomaly in Girtin’s output, concentrating as it does on a rural activity that appears to have been carefully studied from nature, at least in the case of the central motif of the cart and white horse. The distinctive form of the cart wheels suggests that it was based on a drawing such as Four Studies of a Cart (TG1522), which, though it shows a different vehicle, includes the same level of attention to detail. All of this is in contrast with the landscape, which has a generic quality. It is possible that the setting was based on a sketch made on the spot, and its flat open character might suggest a location in Essex, where Girtin worked around 1799, but it feels as though it has been added around the subject of the cart, in an inversion of Girtin’s characteristic practice, where details such as a horse and cart are subsidiary at best. The result is not entirely satisfactory, however, as the low viewpoint means that the top line of the horses and the cart is confused with the horizon, and the panoramic format, associated with topographical subjects, appears at odds with the picturesque central motif. The problematic nature of the relationship between subject and setting centres on the figure of the ‘carter’, who bizarrely provided the old title for the work. What exactly is he doing bringing a horse harnessed to a cart, together with another, to the centre of a field, and what is the white horse eating? In contrast to the work of the artist’s contemporary John Constable (1776–1837), there is simply no logic to the actions he has depicted, and, however much Girtin may have in this case studied the appearance of a hay cart, it cannot disguise his lack of understanding of the rural economy.
On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as a buff laid wrapping paper, made by an unknown English manufacturer (Bower, 2002, p.138; Bower, Report). Sadly, the work has faded, and the impurities in the low-grade paper have resulted in excessive spotting, which has also reduced the drawing’s impact.
1797 - 1798
Four Studies of a Cart
TG1522