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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) Edward Dayes

An Overshot Mill

1794 - 1797

 

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) Edward Dayes (1763-1804)
Title
  • An Overshot Mill
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
27.4 × 42.8 cm, 10 ¾ × 16 ⅞ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy; Work from a Known Source: Contemporary British
Subject Terms
Unidentified Landscape; Wind and Watermills

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0890
Description Source(s)
Viewed in June 2025

Provenance

Stephen Bullard (1855-1909); by descent to Ellen Twistleton Bullard (1865–1959); bequeathed to the Museum, 1959

About this Work

This view of an overshot mill in a hilly landscape was in all likelihood made at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), where Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797. Their task, as they recalled to the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821), was to copy ‘the outlines or unfinished drawings of’ principally John Robert Cozens (1752–97), but other artists too, including Girtin’s master, Edward Dayes (1763–1804). The ‘finished drawings’ they were commissioned to produce were the result of a strict division of labour: ‘Girtin drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. As the young artists reported, ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’, with Turner receiving ‘3s. 6d each night’ whilst ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1 The outcome of their joint labours was substantial, amounting to several hundred drawings many of which were copied from sketches by Dayes of British landscapes, including a number in the Lake District and in North Wales.

And it is in the latter region that we are most likely to find the location of this overshot mill as the building and its relationship to the stream are comparable to two Monro School views in North Wales that have been identified in recent years: Nant Mill, near Betws Garmon (TG0779); and Cynwyd Mill, near Corwen (TG0780). Neither quite matches the structure visually, however, and though it is possible that the author of the original sketch altered elements of the composition, the more likely explanation for the failure to identify its location is that the mill suffered the fate of so many in the region, either falling out of use and slipping into ruin or rendered unrecognisable as a result of rebuilding. Although neither of the identified Welsh mill scenes has a source in a known Dayes composition (the view of Cynwyd is based on a bodycolour by John Laporte (1761–1839)), I nevertheless still favour a lost sketch by Dayes as providing Girtin and Turner with the basis for their work. Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833 included a quantity of Welsh subjects by Dayes which were sold in multiple lots for prices that strongly suggest that they were simple sketches and I suspect it was from one of these that Girtin and Turner worked.2

The drawing has long been attributed to Turner alone and consequently I missed it when I began working on this catalogue. The opportunity to visit Boston and to see the work at first hand, however, has convinced me that it is a good example of Girtin and Turner collaborating on a British scene and it would therefore have predated their independent visits to North Wales in the summer of 1798. For a landscape view there are more areas of visible pencil work than are generally the case so that Girtin’s contribution and his fluid and inventive touches add significantly to the work’s impact. At the same time Turner’s characteristically reticent addition of a limited grey and blue palette leaves space for the pencil work to stand out and the way that significant areas of paper have been left untouched to create a series of highlights across the sheet is very effective. All of which suggests a happy collaboration of the two artists’ talents.

1794 - 1797

Nant Mill, Betws Garmon, North Wales

TG0779

1794 - 1797

Cynwyd Mill, North Wales

TG0780

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 That said it is possible that some of the sketch material was acquired from sales after the artist’s suicide in 1804 (see King, 3 April 1806).

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