- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
- Date
- 1799 - 1800
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper (watermark: J WHATMAN), on a mount of laid paper
- Dimensions
- 20.5 × 32.1 cm, 8 ⅛ × 12 ⅝ in
- Inscription
‘Girtin’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin; 'Bromley Church / Kent' on the back, in another hand
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- London and Environs; Picturesque Vernacular
-
- Versions
-
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
(TG1419)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1418
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 275ii as 'View near Bromley'; '1798'
Provenance
(?) Sotheby’s, 24 March 1820, lot 148 as 'Landscape, with a View of Bromley Church Kent in the distance, Peasant watering his Horse, &c. in colours by GIRTIN, and executed in his best Style'; ... Edward Cohen (1817–86) (lent to London, 1875); J. Palser & Sons; bought by Francis Watkins Keen (c.1864–1933), 21 December 1926; his posthumous sale, Christie’s, 10 November 1933, lot 121 as 'Farm Buildings, with a horseman at a stream near Bromley'; bought by 'Knight', £105; Miss M. G. Newman; Thos. Agnew & Sons, 1963; bought from them by an anonymous collector, £550; presented to the Museum, 1971
Exhibition History
London, 1875, no.103 as 'View near Bromley'
Bibliography
Museum Website as 'Bromley Church, Kent' accessed 14/1/2023
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 North West
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

St Albans Abbey, from the North West
Private Collection

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, the larger of two versions of a picturesque farm scene in open countryside (the other being TG1419) has for much of its history been identified as showing a view near Bromley in Kent on the basis of an inscription on the back of the drawing. The inscription, which identifies the distant building as ‘Bromley Church Kent’, is not in Girtin’s handwriting, however, and the tower seen in the watercolour bears no resemblance to that church’s four-square structure. Moreover, the landscape itself, in the absence of any distinctive topographical features, does not appear like the countryside around Bromley either. I suspect, therefore, that the inscription may have been added later and that it resulted from the fact that the watercolour was copied by one of Girtin’s pupils, Amelia Long, Lady Farnborough (1772–1837) (see figure 1), who lived at Bromley Hill House from 1801, painted views of the area and may even have been the first owner of the work. Putting the old title to one side, the flat landscape is actually closer to the open scenery in Essex that formed the backdrop to many of the picturesque farm views that Girtin painted from around 1799, and the two barns shown here have much in common with the thatched structures seen in A Mill in Essex (TG1416), which has a similarly positioned pond in the foreground. The crucial point is not whether the view is in Kent or Essex, however, as the scene is essentially a picturesque view of vernacular buildings, and a topographically specific title is, I suggest, inappropriate in any case.
Sadly, the work is very faded, to the point where the sky (both the clouds and the main areas of blue) has disappeared completely, and the greens of the vegetation have also been lost, leaving no more than a general tone of sepia to dominate. Indeed, the only evidence that we are not looking at an unfinished monochrome drawing is two patches of blue in the distance, which must have been painted in a more stable pigment. No doubt the watercolour has been exhibited in strong light, and this has facilitated the fading process, but fundamentally it was Girtin’s choice of fugitive pigments used in multiple thin washes that caused the problem. Just two unstable pigments, probably blue indigo and yellow gamboge, if used exclusively for the blues of the sky, the greens of the vegetation and the greys of the clouds, would have been enough to account for much of the drastic deterioration seen here as well as for the impression that the work is unfinished, as the underdrawing in graphite shows up clearly. It may therefore be that Long’s copy provides us with the best evidence of the original appearance of the work. Using stable pigments, her view probably replicates the colours used in the composition, though hardly the spirit of Girtin’s original watercolour.
Another watercolour titled ‘Bromley, Kent’ attributed to Girtin is contained in an album of drawings assembled by John Charles Denham (1777–1867) and now in the collection of the Beinecke Library, Yale University (GEN MSS 831, 81 v). Denham was a fellow member of the Sketching Society and many of the drawings in the album can be associated with its activities.
1799 - 1800
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
TG1419
(?) 1799
A Mill in Essex
TG1416