- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
- Date
- 1799 - 1800
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 50.8 × 86.4 cm, 20 × 34 in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Lake Scenery; North Wales
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1444
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin Archive
Provenance
Dr Jackman; Christie’s, 7 May 1900, lot 91; bought by 'Clive', £3 13s 6d; John Bailey of Wymondham, Norfolk, 1950s (Girtin Archive)
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
About this Work
Although this work was known to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960), he did not include it in the catalogue of Girtin’s watercolours that he compiled with David Loshak (Girtin and Loshak, 1954). In an extensive correspondence with Paul Oppé (1878–1957), now split between the Girtin Archive (27) in the British Museum and the Oppé Archive in the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the two collectors discussed the attribution of the work to Girtin and the counter theory that it was produced by the youngJohn Sell Cotman (1782–1842). The drawing, which was described by Oppé as very faded, does not seem to have been photographed, and, since it has not been seen in public for over a century, it is not possible to comment on the final conclusion of the two earlier connoisseurs that the work was probably not by Girtin. If Girtin’s authorship was confirmed, however, the view of Cadair Idris from the estuary near Barmouth would be one of the largest outcomes of the artist’s 1798 Welsh tour, though the price that the work achieved in 1900 – £3 13s 6d – would suggest that this is unlikely to be the case.
What appears to be a similar view, titled Coastal View and Mountains, has also been attributed to Girtin in the past, though it too was not included in Girtin and Loshak’s catalogue (see figure 1). The work was sold in 1882 as ‘A Rocky Bay Scene, with figures’ with an attribution to John Henderson (1764–1843) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 16 February 1882, lot 135), and Thomas Girtin (the artist’s descendant) interpreted this to mean that it had been produced by the patron, working from a sketch by his protégé (Girtin Archive, 27). There is no evidence to back this up, however, and it is also far from clear that the work shows a Welsh scene, but the attribution to Henderson does seem to make sense as the artist clearly has some knowledge of Girtin's working practise. This is particularly clear in the foreground where the bold use of black recalls later works such as Girtin's Lagoon Capriccio (TG0904) though the comparison is not helped by the excessively hot colouration of the image.
1799 - 1800
A Lagoon Capriccio
TG0904