This view of Bristol Cathedral seen from the north west, along with the open space of College Green, was probably drawn on the return leg of Girtin’s trip to the south west, in the autumn of 1797. Half a dozen pencil sketches of Bristol subjects have survived, but, since the only dated watercolours that resulted from them are views titled Bristol Harbour (TG1727) and A Wharf with Shipping (TG1728), both from 1800, they are not so self-evidently from the 1797 trip as the outline drawings of the coastal views in Devon and Dorset. However, the view of the transept and central tower of the then incomplete cathedral in Bristol shares so many features with two other drawings of architectural subjects (TG1255 and TG1283) that were clearly made on the 1797 tour as to all but remove doubts about the date of this drawing. The sketches The Guildhall, Exeter (TG1255) and Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop’s Palace (TG1283) are roughly the same size and share the same squarish format, and each places the subject at an oblique angle. The sketch of Bristol Cathedral is a little less of a bravura display of the artist’s skills as a draughtsman, and a number of construction lines can be made out, but it too records a mass of details with a subtle touch that varies in tone and strength, from the softest of lines to sharp points of emphasis. Given that we now know that one of the prime purposes of Girtin’s 1797 trip was to execute a view of the interior of Exeter Cathedral for his earliest patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99), it is tempting to interpret the three sketches as being produced with the expectation of a similar commission. It is perhaps symptomatic of the changing pattern of the artist’s career, however, that the three most detailed surviving sketches from the 1797 tour, each of an ancient building potentially of interest to the antiquarian market, do not appear to have resulted in any finished watercolours.

Girtin’s view of the cathedral at Bristol was taken from close to the same spot as the image created by his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) in 1791, though this was presumably entirely coincidental (see figure 1). If anything, Girtin’s viewpoint was even less calculated to show off the architectural merits of one of the nation’s finest Gothic monuments, with an unpicturesque house in the foreground obscuring the fine tracery of the north transept, and a tree hiding part of the magnificent fifteenth-century crossing tower. A viewpoint slightly further to the north would have shown the full extent of the choir, transept and tower in a way that would have been more attractive to the antiquarian market, but it seems that Girtin, as with the even more unconventional view of Wells, was intent on exploring other pictorial possibilities.

1800

Bristol Harbour, with St Mary Redcliffe in the Distance

TG1727

1800

A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol

TG1728

(?) 1797

The Guildhall, Exeter

TG1255

(?) 1797

Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop’s Palace

TG1283

(?) 1797

The Guildhall, Exeter

TG1255

(?) 1797

Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop’s Palace

TG1283