- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
- Title
-
- Ancient Ruins near the River Garigliano, Gaeta in the Distance
- Date
- 1794 - 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 15.9 × 25.4 cm, 6 ¼ × 10 in
- Object Type
- Collaborations; Monro School Copy
- Subject Terms
- Italian View: Ancient Ruins; Italian View: Naples and Environs
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG0745
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2000
Provenance
Phillips, 11 July 2000, lot 13 as 'A Shepherd Resting by Ruins on the Coast' by Thomas Girtin, £1,300; Sotheby's, 30 November 2000, lot 228 as 'Near the Garigliano, Ruins with the Sea & Gaeta Beyond' by Joseph Mallord William Turner, unsold; Nicholas Bowlby Ltd, London
Place depicted
Other entries in Monro School Copies:
Italian Views after Drawings by John Robert Cozens Made on the Second Italian Trip, 1782–83

The Temple of Venus at Baia
Private Collection

Entering the Tyrol: Unidentified Buildings amongst Wooded Hills
Tate, London

An Unidentified Fortress: Entering the Tyrol Region
Private Collection

A View on the River Inn, in the Tyrol
Tate, London

Innsbruck: St Anna's Column on Maria-Theresien Street
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A Tree-Lined Valley, near Innsbruck
Private Collection

A Church Tower in the Valley of the Isarco, near Sterzing, in the Tyrol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The Euganean Hills, Seen from the Walls of Padua
Tate, London

Part of Padua, Seen from the Walls
Private Collection

The Abbey of Santa Giustina at Padua
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The View from Mirabello, the Villa of Count Algarotti in the Euganean Hills
Private Collection

A Convent on Monte della Madonna in the Euganean Hills
Tate, London

Fano, on the Adriatic Coast
Private Collection

Terracina: The View from the Inn, with the Temple of Jupiter Anxur
Tate, London

Naples: The Villa Belvedere, Seen from Sir William Hamilton's Villa at Posillipo
Private Collection

Naples: The View from Sir William Hamilton's Villa at Portici
Private Collection

Portici: Mounts Somma and Vesuvius, from the Myrtle Plantation at Sir William Hamilton’s Villa
Tate, London

Naples: Solimena’s Villa and Pine Trees
Private Collection

Portici: The Fortress in the Royal Park, Looking towards Mounts Somma and Vesuvius
Tate, London

Portici: The Imperial Minister's Villa, near the Harbour of Granatello
Private Collection

Portici: The View from Sir William Hamilton's Villa, with Vesuvius in the Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Portici: The Royal Palace, from the Park
Tate, London

The Coast at Portici, with the Villa d'Elboeuf in the Foreground and the Harbour of Granatello Beyond
Private Collection

The Coast at Salerno, with Arechi Castle Overlooking the Town
Private Collection

The View from Salerno, Looking towards Vietri sul Mare
Tate, London

An Unidentified Villa in a Valley near Vietri sul Mare
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Salerno: An Ancient Cypress in the Garden of the Franciscan Convent
Tate, London

The Coast at Vietri sul Mare, from near Salerno
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Torre Crestarella at Vietri sul Mare, with Salerno in the Distance
Private Collection

The Cantilena Convent, near Vietri sul Mare
Tate, London

The Cantilena Convent, near Vietri sul Mare
Private Collection

The Convent of San Francesco at Cava de' Tirreni
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Naples: The Fifteenth-Century City Walls, with the Dome of Santa Caterina a Formiello
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

View from the Road Leading to the Scuola di Virgilio, Showing Nisida, the Islands of Ischia and Procida, and the Promontory of Miseno
Private Collection, Norfolk

The Bay of Porto Paone, a Flooded Crater in the Islet of Nisida
Private Collection

Ancient Ruins on the Coast near the Point of Posillipo
Tate, London

Naples: The View from an Enclosed Road at Posillipo
Tate, London

Posillipo: The Palazzo di Roccella on the Shore
Private Collection

The Amphitheatre at Capua
Tate, London

A Ferry Crossing a River, on the Road between Eboli and Paestum
Tate, London

The View towards Salerno from the Road to Eboli
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Naples: Castel Sant'Elmo
Tate, London

The Royal Park at Astroni
Private Collection

Lake Agnano, Seen from Astroni
Private Collection

Naples: An Unidentified Convent, with Vesuvius in the Distance
Tate, London

Naples: A Range of Convents near Capodimonte, Including the Chinese College
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

The Vanvitelli Aqueduct, near Caserta
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart

The Royal Palace at Caserta, Seen from the Road to the Vanvitelli Aqueduct
Private Collection

The Convent of Santa Lucia, near Caserta
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

The Convent of Santa Lucia, near Caserta
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Ancient Ruins near the River Garigliano, Gaeta in the Distance
Private Collection

Florence: The Palazzo Vecchio, Seen from the Cascine Park
Tate, London

Florence: The Convent of Monte Oliveto, from the Banks of the Arno
Horne Museum, Florence

Florence: The Convent of Monte Oliveto, from the Banks of the Arno
Private Collection

A Villa on the Banks of the River Arno, Known as the Villa Salviati
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Building amongst Trees, on the River Arno near Florence
Sphinx Fine Art, London

A View on the River Arno, with a Tower on a Hill
Tate, London

Florence: The Palazzo Vecchio from the Boboli Gardens, with Fiesole in the Distance
Harrow School, London

Florence: The View from the Boboli Gardens across the Valley of the Arno
Private Collection

An Unidentified Villa, between Florence and Bologna
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Wooded Shoreline on Lake Maggiore
Tate, London

Angera: The Borromeo Castle Overlooking Lake Maggiore
Tate, London

The Castle of Arona on Lake Maggiore
Private Collection

Lake Maggiore, from the Shore
Private Collection

Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore
Private Collection

Lake Maggiore, from Isola Bella
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Distant View of the Grande Chartreuse
Private Collection

Buildings on a Promontory on the Coast at Posillipo
Private Collection

The Marmore Falls, near Terni
Private Collection

A Narrow Gorge Leading to the Grande Chartreuse
Private Collection

Florence: The View from the Grand Duke's Garden
Private Collection
Footnotes
- 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).
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About this Work
This view of ancient ruins near the river Garigliano to the north of Naples, with the coastal town of Gaeta seen in the distance, was copied from a composition by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) (see figure 1). It was produced 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, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’. The majority of the resulting watercolours saw the two artists engaged in a unique collaboration; as they later recalled, Girtin ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’ and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1
Cozens’ on-the-spot sketch is inscribed ‘Near the Garigliano – Decr.8’, with the distant ‘Gaeta’ also marked on the image (Bell and Girtin, 1935, no.344). The sketch is found in the fifth of the seven sketchbooks from Cozens’ second Italian trip, which saw the artist travel to Naples in 1782 in the company of his patron William Beckford (1760–1844), though it was actually made on the return journey to Rome at the beginning of December. It is unlikely that the Monro School watercolour was copied directly from the sketch by Cozens, however. It would have been uncharacteristic of Beckford to have lent the sketchbooks to Monro, and the existence of a large number of tracings of their contents by Cozens himself suggests that the patron, rather than the artist, retained the books. An album put together by Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827), now in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, includes more than seventy tracings from on-the-spot drawings in the first three of the sketchbooks, and these provided the basis for at least thirty Monro School works. There are only five tracings from the next three books, but there is no reason to think that others did not exist, and it was presumably from these lost copies by Cozens that as many as thirty-five more watercolours were produced by Girtin and Turner, including this view of ruins, which may be part of the site at Minturno. The fact that the Monro School copies never follow either the shading or the distribution of light seen in the on-the-spot sketches, though they always replicate the basic outlines, further suggests that Girtin and Turner worked from tracings of the sketchbook views.
The majority of the Italian scenes sold at Monro’s posthumous sale were described as being by Turner alone, and this generally remained the case until the publication of Andrew Wilton’s pioneering article in 1984, since when the joint attribution of the Monro School works to Turner and Girtin has increasingly become the norm (Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). In this case, however, the work was attributed to Girtin alone when it appeared on the art market in 2000. Monro’s posthumous sale included a number of ‘views in Italy’ that were listed as being by Girtin, including ‘Three, by Girtin, after Cozens’ (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 2 July 1833, lot 35). However, this work does not resemble stylistically the Monro School watercolours that have the strongest claims to be by Girtin alone, such as Lake Vico (TG0635) or Vallombrosa Abbey (TG0669), and I can see no reason to conclude that this example departs from the practice employed in the overwhelming proportion of copies after Cozens’ sketches (as Girtin and Turner reported to Farington in 1798). Girtin’s involvement in its production was therefore fairly basic, tracing the outlines from a Cozens drawing; it was Turner’s more onerous task to obscure the essentially mechanical practice of replication and produce something that approximates to a finished work. It is perhaps significant that when the work reappeared at auction later in 2000, it did so with an attribution solely to Turner.
1794 - 1797
Lake Vico
TG0635
1797 - 1798
Vallombrosa Abbey
TG0669