- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Bellevue and the Pont de Sèvres, Taken from near the Pont de Saint-Cloud: Pencil Study for Plate Thirteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
- Date
- 1802
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 14.3 × 45.7 cm, 5 ⅝ × 18 in
- Inscription
‘View of Bellevue & le Pont de Sêve from the terras terrace near to le Pont de St Cloud’ lower centre, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Drawing for a Print; Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Panoramic Format; Paris and Environs; River Scenery
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1881
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 473 as 'Belle Vue and Pont de Sèvres from St.-Cloud'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2018
Provenance
John Girtin (1773–1821); bought by John Jackson (d.1828); his posthumous sale, Foster’s, 24 April 1828, lot 321; bought by 'Tiffin'; ... 'Colnaghi'; bought from them by the Museum, 1868
Bibliography
Holcroft, 1804, vol.2, p.493; Binyon, 1898–1907, no.83
Place depicted
Other entries in Picturesque Views in Paris and Other French Subjects

The Tuileries Palace and the Pont Royal, Taken from the Quai d’Orsay: Pencil Study for Plate One of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Tuileries Palace and the Pont Royal, Taken from the Quai d’Orsay: Colour Study for Plate One of Picturesque Views in Paris
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The Louvre and the Pont Royal, Taken from the Pont Neuf: Pencil Study for Plate Two of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Louvre and the Pont Royal, Taken from the Pont Neuf: Colour Study for Plate Two of Picturesque Views in Paris
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

The Ile de la Cité, with the Louvre and the Pont Neuf in the Distance, Taken from the Pont Marie: Pencil Study for Plate Three of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

Paris with the Louvre, Taken from the Pont Marie: Copy of Plate Three of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Ile de la Cité, with the Louvre and the Pont Neuf in the Distance, Taken from the Pont Marie: Colour Study for Plate Three of Picturesque Views in Paris
Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Pont Saint Michel, from the Pont Neuf: Pencil Study for Plate Four of 'Picturesque Views in Paris'
British Museum, London

Pont Saint Michel, from the Pont Neuf: Colour Study for Plate Four of 'Picturesque Views in Paris'
Private Collection

Paris: The Isle de la Cité and the River Seine, Taken from the Pont Neuf
Private Collection

A Panoramic View of Paris from Chaillot, Looking up the Seine with the Dome of Les Invalides: Pencil Study for Plate Five of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

Panoramic View of Paris from Chaillot, Looking up the Seine with the Dome of Les Invalides: Colour Study for Plate Five of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Banks of the Seine, with the Dome of Les Invalides
Private Collection

The Tuileries Palace and the Pont Royal: Pencil Study for Plate Six of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Tuileries Palace and the Pont Royal, Taken from the Pont de la Concorde: Pencil Study for Plate Six of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Tuileries Palace and the Pont Royal, Taken from the Pont de la Concorde: Colour Study for Plate Six of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Pont Neuf, Part of the Louvre, Notre Dame and the College of the Four Nations: Pencil Study for Plate Seven of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Pont Neuf, Part of the Louvre, Notre Dame and the College of the Four Nations: Colour Study for Plate Seven of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Pont Neuf and the Mint: Pencil Study for Plate Eight of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Pont Neuf and the Mint: Colour Study for Plate Eight of Picturesque Views in Paris
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Part of the Pont Neuf, with the Mint: Pencil Study for Plate Eight of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Pont au Change, the Théâtre de la Cité, the Pont Neuf and the Conciergerie Prison, Taken from the Pont Notre Dame: Pencil Study for Plate Nine of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Pont au Change, the Théâtre de la Cité, the Pont Neuf and the Conciergerie Prison, Taken from the Pont Notre Dame: Colour Study for Plate Nine of Picturesque Views in Paris
Aberdeen Art Gallery

The Porte Saint-Denis, Viewed from the Suburbs: Possible Colour Study for Plate Ten of Picturesque Views in Paris
Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris

The Porte Saint-Denis, Viewed from the Suburbs: Possible Colour Study for Plate Ten of Picturesque Views in Paris
Tate, London

The Pont de la Tournelle and Notre Dame, Taken from the Arsenal: Pencil Study for Plate Eleven of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Pont de la Tournelle and Notre Dame, Taken from the Arsenal: Colour Study for Plate Eleven of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Pantheon, from the Arsenal, Looking across the Seine: Pencil Study for Plate Twelve of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Pantheon, from the Arsenal, Looking across the Seine: Colour Study for Plate Twelve of Picturesque Views in Paris
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The Pantheon, from the Arsenal, Looking across the Seine: Pencil Study for Plate Twelve of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

Bellevue and the Pont de Sèvres, Taken from near the Pont de Saint-Cloud: Pencil Study for Plate Thirteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

Bellevue and the Pont de Sèvres, Taken from the Terrace near the Pont de Saint-Cloud: Colour Study for Plate Thirteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Palace and Village of Choisy from the Banks of the Seine: Pencil Study for Plate Fourteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Palace and Village of Choisy from the Banks of the Seine: Colour Study for Plate Fourteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Water Works at Marly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the Distance: Pencil Study for Plate Fifteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Water Works at Marly, Saint-Germain-en-Laye in the Distance: Colour Study for Plate Fifteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The View from the Palace Terrace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Aqueduct of Marly in the Distance: Pencil Study for Plate Sixteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The View from the Palace Terrace at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the Aqueduct of Marly in the Distance: Colour Study for Plate Sixteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

The Village of Chaillot, Taken from the Pont de la Concorde: Pencil Study for Plate Seventeen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Village of Chaillot, Taken from the Pont de la Concorde: Colour Study for Plate Seventeen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton

Saint-Cloud and Mont Calvaire, Taken from the Pont de Sèvres: Pencil Study for Plate Eighteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

Saint-Cloud and Mont Calvaire, Taken from the Pont de Sèvres: Colour Study for Plate Eighteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

The Banks of the Marne below the Bridge at Charenton: Pencil Study for Plate Twenty of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Banks of the Marne below the Bridge at Charenton: Colour Study for Plate Twenty of Picturesque Views in Paris
Untraced Public Collection, Israel

The Champ de Mars, Seen from the Trocadéro, with Sèvres in the Distance: Unused Pencil Study for Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Watermill above the Bridge at Charenton, near Paris
British Museum, London

The Watermill above the Bridge at Charenton: Pencil Study for Plate Nineteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
British Museum, London

The Watermill above the Bridge at Charenton: Colour Study for Plate Nineteen of Picturesque Views in Paris
Private Collection

La Rue Saint-Denis, Paris: A Scene for Thomas Dibdin's Pantomime Harlequin's Habeas
Private Collection, Norfolk

Paris: Porte Saint-Denis and the Boulevard Saint-Denis
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Part of the Tuileries Palace with the Louvre (Place du Carrousel)
The Higgins, Bedford

Part of the Tuileries Palace with the Louvre (Place du Carrousel)
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin

Paris: View over the Rooftops towards Montmartre
British Museum, London

Paris: The Ruins of the Roman Baths, Hôtel de Cluny
Tate, London

Paris: The Ruins of the Roman Baths, Hôtel de Cluny
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

A Sheet of Figure Studies
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Sheet of Figure Studies Relating to Picturesque Views in Paris
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Sheet of Figure Studies: Women Washing Clothes at a River
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Studies of Women and Men, Including an Advocate Pleading
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Paris: The Hôtel de Ville and the Church of Saint-Jean-en-Grève
Private Collection, Norfolk

The Church of Saint Corneille at Compiègne
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

The Porte Chapelle, Compiègne
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Paris: The Entrance to the Hôtel du Grand Prieur du Temple
British Museum, London

An Interior View of the Nave of Laon Cathedral
British Museum, London

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A River Scene with a Castle on a Cliff
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Wooded Landscape with a Hermit
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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Footnotes
- 1 Holcroft’s unique eye-witness account of Girtin at work during the excursions they undertook in and around Paris in the early spring of 1802, published in the second volume of Travels from Hamburg, through Westphalia, Holland, and the Netherlands, to Paris, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1802 – Item 1).
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About this Work
This view of Bellevue and the Pont de Sèvres, taken from near the Pont de Saint-Cloud looking south along the river Seine, was drawn on the spot by Girtin early in 1802 in preparation for plate thirteen of his Picturesque Views in Paris (see print after TG1881a). Having completed a series of highly detailed panoramic drawings of the French capital, Girtin engaged the help of the playwright Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809) to ‘take views in the environs of Paris’ on a series of ‘short excursions’ to the sites ‘esteemed the most picturesque’ by contemporary artists (Holcroft, 1804, vol.2, p.488).1 Holcroft’s account of their trips, published in 1804, provides the only direct evidence we have of Girtin’s sketching practice, including, in this case, the fact that unlike in the city views, for which the artist almost certainly employed a camera obscura, here he worked freehand with great ‘dispatch’. Holcroft thus records that ‘From a seat on the north bank of the river, near the bridge of Saint Cloud … a second view was taken, by Girtin, while dinner was preparing’, and, as the sketch indicates, the artist did not make ‘finished’ drawings, doing just enough so that ‘all the objects were in their proper place, and sufficiently made out for him to accurately understand his own intentions’ (Holcroft, 1804, vol.2, pp.493 and 491). Although these works are different in character from the city sketches, the artist continued to use the same support, which, as the paper historian Peter Bower has noted, is a cream laid writing paper made by the Blauw and Briel company in Holland (Smith, 2002b, p.141; Bower, Report). This, he believes, was bought by Girtin in Paris, and may have been made twenty years earlier.
The inscription on the drawing was presumably dictated by Holcroft, as we know Girtin was ‘Unable to speak the language’. The ‘terrace’ referred to in the inscription on the drawing was that of the gardens of the ‘palace of Saint Cloud’, to which the two visitors were granted access whilst it was being fitted up for the use of the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). As elsewhere on his tour of the environs of Paris, Girtin was disappointed by the formal gardens he encountered, and he was not tempted to take a view of them despite their fame. Holcroft summed up the problem for the artist, noting that ‘whatever art could effect, to disgrace nature, has been studied’; thus ‘cut trees, stone basons, water works … and the whole routine of similar formalities offend the eye, in despite of the foliage, the water, and the beautiful inequalities of the ground’ (Holcroft, 1804, vol.2, pp. 488 and 493). To capture something of those ‘beautiful inequalities’ – and in spite of the inscription, which mistakenly suggests that the view was taken from the ‘terrace’ – Girtin made his drawing from lower down on the riverbank (as noted by Holcroft), from where none of the garden’s formalities are visible, and where he could get a good view of a broad sweep of the river.
Girtin’s soft-ground etching (see the print after, above) was published separately from the finished aquatint, on 2 September 1802. To create this autograph print, the artist first traced his own drawing, reversing the image in the process (see figure 1) and then, using the tracing as a template, impressed the lines onto an etching plate coated in a tacky ground of an acid-resistant mix. Lifting the tracing and taking away the ground where the lines had been pushed in, he would then have immersed the plate in acid, which would have bitten into the unprotected areas. Cleaned up, the plate, with the etched lines now according with the direction of Girtin’s original drawing, could then be used to print from. Such a complex procedure employed by a novice printmaker like Girtin no doubt required a number of proof stages, though none seem to have survived in this case.
1802
Bellevue and the Pont de Sèvres, Taken from near the Pont de Saint-Cloud: Colour Study for Plate Thirteen of ‘Picturesque Views in Paris’
TG1881a