- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) William Pearson (1772-1849)
- Title
-
- An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
- Date
- 1798 - 1805
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 11.7 × 17.6 cm, 4 ⅝ × 6 ⅞ in
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- Unidentified Topographical View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1775
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 419 as 'Church Amongst Woods', by Thomas Girtin; '1800'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960); given to Tom Girtin (1913–94), c.1938; bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975
Exhibition History
London, 1962a, no.160
Bibliography
Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.83; YCBA Online as 'Attributed to William Pearson' (Accessed 20/09/2022)
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 North West
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, New York
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
Westminster Abbey, Seen from Green Park and the Queen's Basin
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
Turver’s Farm, Radwinter
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
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, The 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
Effingham Churchyard, Formerly Known as 'A Country Churchyard'
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
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, New York
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Study of a Woman Reading; A Slight Study of a Seated Woman
Private Collection
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
The Head of a Youth, Here Identified as Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This small sketch of an unknown landscape subject was included in Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak’s catalogue of Girtin’s work, where it was described as ‘beautiful’ and ‘remarkable for its sound economy of structure’, and was listed amongst the artist’s latest sketches, from 1800–1801 (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, pp.83 and 191). This is not an opinion that has been shared more recently, as Susan Morris did not include the sketch in her catalogue of the fine collection of Girtin’s drawings at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, which were largely acquired, as here, from the Girtin family (Morris, 1986), whilst the gallery itself currently lists it in its online catalogue as ‘attributed to William Pearson'. Either as an example of the shift in taste over the past seventy years or, less charitably, as a sad instance of the way in which ownership (and thus a financial interest in a work) can colour objectivity, the attribution by Girtin and Loshak is clearly untenable. Regarding the latter point, the fact that the watercolour was first recorded in the family collection in the time of the artist’s son, Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74), is not significant, since the bulk of the works he owned were bought on the art market, and this work was almost certainly not inherited directly.
The suggestion that the work is by William Pearson (1772–1849) is no doubt based on its similarity to a signed and dated example of a comparable subject, From Boxley Hill, near Maidstone (see figure 1), in the same collection, and a larger studio work from 1802, Mountains and Lake (see TG1400 figure 3), tends to confirm the possibility. There was a time when any uncertain versions of a Girtin composition tended to attract an attribution to Pearson, and works such as Berry Pomeroy Castle (TG1271) and Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye (see TG1364 figure 2) have with varying degrees of success been linked to him. In this case, the closest comparison I can find is with a version of Easby Abbey, from the River Swale (TG1060), which, although it was also wrongly attributed by Girtin and Loshak to Girtin, seems to be by the same hand responsible for this unidentified landscape, though whether that was Pearson or an anonymous amateur copyist cannot finally be ascertained.
1798 - 1803
Berry Pomeroy Castle
TG1271
1797 - 1798
Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
TG1059