This late watercolour, painted in the last complete year of Girtin’s life, shows the surviving part of the priory church at Bolton in Yorkshire, seen from the river Wharfe. Employing a limited palette of colours and his customary coarse cartridge paper, the artist fashioned a sunny midday scene that evokes a peaceful sense of rural retirement quite different from the melancholic mood often associated with the depiction of monastic ruins, as in the case of another view of Bolton Priory (TG1676). Girtin’s technique is equally effective in the shady foreground and the brightly illuminated middle ground. In both, he reduces forms to simple blocks of a few superimposed layers of wash, with the neutral tone of the paper showing through to create a vibrant set of highlights. There are a number of passages, in the foreground water in particular, where the radical simplification of forms creates strikingly abstract patterns, and across the composition the viewer can switch easily from taking pleasure in the illusory natural effects on display to appreciating the varied and inventive ways in which Girtin employs the medium. Areas of very fluid washes of colour, contrasted with rough scratching out, occur to great effect in the foreground, in particular, where the artist faithfully recorded the manner in which the clear water of the Wharfe appears brown because of the colour of the underlying rock. We are able to enjoy the artist’s mastery of the medium because the work is generally in good condition, the exception being the darkening of the trees to the right, where Girtin’s choice of a fugitive blue pigment, probably indigo, has resulted in a loss of detail and a tonality that is too warm.

Girtin produced at least six finished watercolours of the priory church at Bolton – the foundation was never an abbey – as well as five more of its environs along the river Wharfe. All of these studio works derive from pencil sketches and on-the-spot colour studies that the artist made in the summer of 1800, though the sketch for this work has not been traced. Collectively, the group represents one of the artist’s most diverse explorations of a topographical subject, encompassing scenes that explore the sublime backdrop to the ruins (TG1684) as well as their more picturesque immediate setting on a bend of the river (TG1680). This work is closest to the three versions of the view of the ruined east end of the church (TG1676, TG1677 and TG1678), which records the site’s ‘seclusion’ and ‘retirement’, where a ‘luxuriant landscape, composed of abundance of wood, water and meadows’, guaranteed a ‘retreat … from the strife and turbulency of the busy world’ (Anonymous, 1813, pp.15–16). There is, however, a key difference that points to the more radical nature of this work. If we look at another of the Bolton drawings, which shows the view from further away, looking north (TG1616), the unusual character of the composition becomes clear. Moving closer to the church and looking from the bend in the river, Girtin omits the modern buildings of Bolton Abbey at the same time as he obscures the ostensible subject of the work, the ruined east end and crossing of the priory church, behind the two trees to the right. What we therefore see as the centrepiece of the composition is actually the west end of the priory, which was fitted up as the parish church of Bolton Abbey after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, with the blocked-off opening to the crossing visible to the right. It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that the work was for a significant part of its existence known erroneously as 'Easby Abbey', as Girtin obscured the picturesque outline of the ruined east end in favour of the singularly lumpish profile of the nave, taking a typically perverse delight in disregarding a much prized view.

It is very likely that Girtin made his original sketches of Bolton on an excursion from Harewood House, where he stayed with his patron Edward Lascelles (1764–1814). Lascelles certainly commissioned one of the views of the countryside around Bolton, the very faded On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey (TG1554), but he did not own either this or any of the other Bolton views, many of which appear to have been made instead for Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), who acted on behalf of the artist in his final years in a role somewhere between agent and dealer. Reynolds recorded in October 1801 that he had in his possession ‘Drawings by Girtin 19 Large size at £7. 7’, but that since ‘Mr G leaves England in a fortnight they will then I should think become much more Valuable’ (Reynolds, Letter, 1801).¹ In the event, Reynolds was able to sell works of this size for £10 during Girtin’s absence. Most of the works that it has been possible to identify as going through Reynolds’ hands are prominently signed and dated, like this watercolour, and they all conform to the same standard size. The point about the date is that it signified to potential purchasers that the drawing was newly produced, as opposed to having been consigned to a dealer because it had not found a buyer. Although there is no specific evidence to suggest that this work was once part of Reynolds’ stock, it is a strong possibility, and it therefore stands both as evidence of Girtin’s skill as a watercolourist and as an example of his increasing use of the art market to assert his independence from direct patronage.

1800 - 1801

Bolton Abbey: The East End of the Priory Church, from across the River Wharfe

TG1676

1800 - 1801

Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe, near Bolton Abbey

TG1684

1801

Bolton Abbey, from the River Wharfe

TG1680

1800 - 1801

Bolton Abbey: The East End of the Priory Church, from across the River Wharfe

TG1676

1800 - 1801

Bolton Abbey: The East End of the Priory Church, from across the River Wharfe

TG1677

1800

Bolton Abbey: The East End of the Priory Church, from across the River Wharfe

TG1678

(?) 1800

Bolton Abbey, from the River Wharfe

TG1616

1800 - 1801

On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey

TG1554