- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- An Unidentified Windmill, Probably in Lambeth
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 31.8 × 25.1 cm, 12 ½ × 9 ⅞ in
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Wind and Water Mills
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1450
- Description Source(s)
- Gallery Website
Provenance
Andrew Wyld; bought by the Museum from him, 1986
Exhibition History
Andrew Wyld, 1986, no.15 as ’A Windmill - possibly the Smock Mill at Lambeth’
Bibliography
Butlin, 1988, pp.200-1
Place depicted
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
Hawes Fine Art
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
A House Seen across a Lake, 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 fine on-the-spot colour sketch was previously attributed to Peter De Wint (1784–1849), but the late Andrew Wyld identified the work as being by Girtin and, with a minor proviso, I think he was correct in his judgement (cited by Butlin, 1988, p.200). The only cause for concern stems from the fact that there are no comparable colour sketches of vernacular buildings by Girtin, who generally made his on-the-spot studies from landscape scenes that had been transformed by a particular light or weather effect and that might therefore provide the basis for a successful studio watercolour. That said, this work has so many stylistic features in common with sketches such as A Street in Weymouth (TG1241), including the use of a similar restricted palette, with very fluid washes brushed in with evident dispatch and with an economy of effort, that any doubts are quickly dispelled. I would point, in particular, to the featureless foreground and the way that it gives way, by a series of blotches and accidents, to the more carefully resolved form of the tower. This is typical of Girtin’s habit of concentrating only on the essential parts of the sketch, in this case adding a few accents in two tones of grey to depict the sails and the wooden platform, and in the process resolving the form of the mill, which creates a sense of depth across an otherwise flat expanse of wash.
Mills feature in a number of Girtin’s watercolours, including his most famous image, Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea, popularly known as The White House, Chelsea (TG1740). The structure shown in this sketch, like the Red House Mill in Girtin’s most famous work, is a smock mill – in other words, its polygonal tower is topped with a cap that rotates so that the sails catch the wind. However, as Andrew Wyld also suggested, this mill is more likely to depict the Lambeth Smock Mill, one of the three shown in the distance of Westminster and Lambeth (TG1854), the colour study that Girtin made for section three of his monumental panorama of London (cited in Butlin, 1988, p.200). The mill, which was one of the tallest in London, was also depicted in a watercolour by Hendrik de Cort (1742–1810) that dates from 1804 (see figure 1), and, though Girtin’s sketch seems to have smoothed out some of the building’s angularity, the comparison suggests that the Lambeth mill is the most plausible identity for the subject shown here.
(?) 1797
A Street in Weymouth
TG1241
1800
Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea (The White House, Chelsea)
TG1740
(?) 1801
Westminster and Lambeth: Colour Study for the ‘Eidometropolis’, Section Three
TG1854