Formerly titled ‘Exmouth’, this watercolour shows the view across the Torridge estuary from Instow Sands towards the port of Appledore; it was therefore taken from a point seen in On the River Taw, North Devon (TG1736), from where the river is also visible to the left. Girtin visited the north Devon coast in the autumn of 1797 after first staying in Exeter and moving along the south coast of the county. A recently discovered document records that the artist’s brother, John Girtin (1773–1821), sent a £5 note to him at ‘Biddeford’ on 21 November (Smith, 2017–18, pp.35–36; Chancery, Income and Expenses, 1804). This dates Girtin’s visit to nearby Appledore with some precision and suggests that he stayed with Rowland Edward Calvert (c.1750–1813), who was living in Bideford at the time. Calvert, who was the father of the artist Edward Calvert (1799–1883), appears to have been the first owner of this work, and it was he who presumably commissioned the view and encouraged Girtin to explore the area and make sketches, such as The North Devon Coast: Bideford Bay (TG1281). At the time of Girtin’s visit in 1797, the town was beginning to attract visitors, though poor transport links meant that the coast was not yet a popular destination for tourists, and, if the artist was for once in the vanguard of travellers, then it was almost certainly with the support of a local patron such as Calvert. The sunny disposition of so many of the watercolours that were the outcome of the West Country tour led earlier writers, such as Susan Morris, to assume, not unreasonably, that the artist visited in the summer, but the discovery that Girtin was travelling much later in the year makes his achievement in works such as this all the more remarkable (Morris, 1986, p.21). For it is difficult to imagine a more immediate and lively evocation of a sunny summer’s day on the coast, with the brightly lit buildings and their reflections, sparkling gaily and evoking nothing but the happiest of associations. The untraced pencil sketch, it must be stressed, must have been worked on a day late in November, and the effect conjured up by the artist in the studio was therefore the result of a profound act of the imagination.

However, although logic would suggest that the watercolour was a commission produced in the immediate aftermath of Girtin’s trip to the West Country, and I dated the work in the catalogue of the 2002 Girtin bicentenary exhibition to 1798, now I am not so sure (Smith, 2002b, p.148). Stylistically, it seems closer to the view of Instow and Appledore dated 1800 (TG1736), and even more to the so-called White House at Chelsea (TG1740), than the other coastal scenes that emerged from the 1797 tour (such as TG1251). Moreover, the work is significantly smaller than any of the commissions Girtin is known to have received at this time – indeed, it conforms more closely to the lesser of the two standard formats of the watercolours that Girtin supplied around 1800–1801 to Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), who acted on behalf of the artist in his final years in a role somewhere between agent and dealer. The fact that the adjacent view of Instow, the location from which the Appledore scene is taken, was produced in 1800 for Reynolds may therefore be crucial. The evidence is not overwhelming, but I suspect that this work was produced later than has generally been thought, and, though that makes no difference to its qualities or quality, even if it was painted just two years later, that still constitutes a fifth of Girtin’s working life.

On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as an off-white coarse laid wrapping paper by an unknown English manufacturer (Smith, 2002b, p.148; Bower, Report). The work’s main distinguishing feature, the bright highlights, was therefore created by leaving an off-white paper untouched, so that it shows up brilliantly by the force of the contrast with the surrounding colours and not by the strength of the local colour of the support; once again, one is reminded of the white house that is not actually white in Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea (TG1740). On another point, the manner in which the lower part of the signature has been cut provides good evidence of the way in which the artist presented his work. The watercolour would thus have been surrounded by the artist’s own washline mount, onto which part of his signature must have strayed, so that when the mount was removed, as fashions in the display of watercolours changed, the lower part of the name was lost. The mount must have been an integral part of Girtin’s conception for the watercolour, therefore, and perhaps this encouraged its owner to consign it to the portfolio, which would, in turn, have helped to preserve it in a state that ensures that it continues to provide considerable pleasure in keeping with its subject.

(?) 1800

On the River Taw, North Devon, Looking from Braunton Marsh towards Instow and Appledore

TG1736

(?) 1797

The Estuary of the River Taw

TG1281

(?) 1800

On the River Taw, North Devon, Looking from Braunton Marsh towards Instow and Appledore

TG1736

1800

Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea (The White House, Chelsea)

TG1740

1797 - 1798

The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below

TG1251

1800

Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea (The White House, Chelsea)

TG1740