- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Box Hill
- Date
- (?) 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 22.8 × 30.3 cm, 9 × 11 ⅞ in
- Inscription
'Girtin' on the back
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Surrey View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1423
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in April 2022
Provenance
Edith Mary Burke Powell (Lady Powell, née Wood) (d.1934); bequeathed to the Museum, 1934
Bibliography
V&A, 1935, p.24; Wilton, 1979, p.317 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner; Lambourne and Hamilton, 1980, p.386 as 'Landscape with Wooded Hill, Possibly Box Hill, Surrey', 'attributed to' Joseph Mallord William Turner
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 view of Box Hill in Surrey is inscribed on the back with Girtin’s name and it was attributed to the artist until the publication by Andrew Wilton of his The Life and Work of J. M. W. Turner (Wilton, 1979, no.163, p.317). The new attribution to Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) has not been universally accepted, however, and the production of this online catalogue has provided the perfect opportunity to check the status of the work in the light of my initial thought that whilst the drawing seems very unlikely to be by Turner, the stylistic evidence does not point overwhelmingly to Girtin either. The problem is less to do with the pencil work, which does indeed bear some resemblance to Girtin’s hand, and more to do with the fact that the colouring is uncharacteristic of his style on a number of counts. In the first instance, although the palette is not unlike that of Girtin around 1795, overall the drawing is overworked and the colours rather muddied. Likewise, the foliage in the foreground, which frames the view in a conventional way that Girtin generally avoided, is also problematic, resembling more the work of a young Peter De Wint (1784–1849). It is perhaps telling that at least one of that artist’s early works, Lincoln Cathedral, Viewed from Below (TG1013), has been misattributed to Girtin in the past, though I am not sure whether that is quite sufficient grounds to be certain about the authorship of this watercolour.
Similar doubts about the identity of the subject depicted are, however, without foundation, as numerous views of the Surrey landscape at Box Hill attest, including a sketch that appeared on the art market in 2009 (Woolley & Wallis, 6 March 2009, lot 98) attributed to Turner himself (see figure 1). Although there are some differences in the disposition of the foliage, the composition is close enough to confirm the subject of this watercolour. The attribution of the work to Turner may well be correct, and certainly there is no evidence of Girtin’s involvement in that work’s depiction of a subject that was popular amongst the artists who frequented the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Indeed, Monro’s posthumous sale included a work by Girtin that was titled ‘Boxhill’, one of three Surrey views probably bought by a local landowner, William Lock II (1767–1847) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 1 July 1833, lot 114). As yet, none of these have been identified, all of which makes the fact that this work also does not seem right all the more frustrating.
(?) 1810
Lincoln Cathedral, Viewed from Below
TG1013