This sadly faded work is one of three watercolours by Girtin that show the view across the river Wharfe to the ruined east end of the priory church of Bolton (the others being TG1676 and TG1678). The watercolour is based on a drawing in the Whitworth Book of Drawings (TG1617), though the composition has been cut to the left to omit the encroaching trees and extended to the right to include more of the river and its banks. The sketch was probably made in the summer of 1800 on an excursion from Harewood House, where Girtin was staying with his patron Edward Lascelles (1764–1814).¹ Although Lascelles commissioned a large watercolour of an adjacent view, On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey (TG1554), it does not include the priory ruins, and he did not own any of the seven or so rather more conventional views of the site that Girtin painted. Working for the open market, rather than on commission, it seems that Girtin needed to produce a recognisable view of what, thanks to its location on the Wharfe, was one of the most celebrated monastic sites in the country, and the destination for many well-off travellers in search of picturesque scenery. The fact that Girtin found customers for three (albeit slightly different) versions of this view of the east end of the ruins, hemmed in by trees, suggests that collectors wanted a secluded image of a building that had deliberately been sited far from the haunts of humanity. As the Revd John Swete (1752–1821) noted on his tour of Yorkshire in 1790, sites of ‘Monastic Retirement’ were properly associated with ‘that Solemn Stillness which has a tendency to lead on the Mind to Meditation’, and this was clearly Girtin’s intention here, even though this was something of an illusion (quoted in Carter, Lindfield and Townshend, 2017, p.138). As a reference to Girtin’s view of the village of Bolton confirms (TG1616), the dramatic cut-off to the left is needed to obscure the fact that there are a number of modern buildings in the vicinity, whilst the west end of the ruins, out of sight here, was actually fitted up as the local parish church. The former problem is addressed in the other two versions of the composition by the encroaching trees, which, to the left in particular, help to enclose the scene to an almost claustrophobic degree. But here, in this more open view of ‘monastic Retirement’, the sense of stillness lacks the solemnity of the Eton College view (TG1676), and, instead, we are confronted by a different sort of tranquillity, the mood of torpor induced by a midday scene in summer, when even the farm animals rest and neither foliage nor water stir. In this, the most open of the versions, the stepping stones shown in the pencil sketch (but omitted elsewhere) link the near bank with the main part of the composition, so that we might imagine the artist crossing the Wharfe to make his original drawing.

The brighter mood of serenity depicted by Girtin is difficult to fully appreciate today in a work that has suffered from differential fading that has affected the balance of colour. Much of the foliage has been stripped of its green colour, and the clouds have lost the grey tones that would have given them depth, but the artist must have used two different blue and yellow pigments, one stable and the other evanescent, since some of the greens have remained along with some areas of blue. As a result, the overall effect of the work is patchy – good in parts and overly warm in others. Underlying pencil work has become too visible as well, and there are passages of very crude painting (in the middle ground, for instance) that would seem to be too poor to be by Girtin, except for the fact that they are just the underpainting of areas that would have been transformed by thin washes of colour that have been lost. There is absolutely no question about the attribution of the work to Girtin, therefore.

The watercolour was etched by Letitia Byrne (1779–1849) and published in 1807 as part of Finished Etchings of Picturesque Views … after Drawings by various Masters (see the print after, above). A contemporary review noted that the etchings ‘have a delicacy and softness which is extremely attractive, and in the general effect are peculiarly clear and picturesque’.²

1800 - 1801

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

TG1676

1800

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

TG1678

(?) 1800

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

TG1617

1800 - 1801

On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey

TG1554

(?) 1800

Bolton Abbey, from the River Wharfe

TG1616

1800 - 1801

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

TG1676