- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
- Date
- (?) 1797
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper (watermark: M)
- Dimensions
- 16.5 × 23 cm, 6 ½ × 9 in
- Inscription
‘Oakhampton’ on the back
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; River Scenery; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
(TG1276)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1280
- Description Source(s)
- Auction Catalogue
Provenance
John Postle Heseltine (1843–1929); his posthumous sale, Sotheby’s, 29 May 1935, lot 313; volume bought by Bernard Squire, £32; ... Sotheby’s, 9 November 1995, lot 70, £575 as 'Cattle by the River Okement, Okehampton, the Castle Beyond'
Exhibition History
Squire Gallery, 1936, no.50
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
The Gateway of the Bishop's Palace, Wells
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
A Distant View of Southampton
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bursledon Ferry on the River Hamble, near Southampton
Private Collection
The Hamble River, near Southampton
Private Collection
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
Leeds Art Gallery
The Market Rooms, Weymouth
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Private Collection
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds Art Gallery
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Private Collection
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Private Collection
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral, from the South
Koriyama City Museum of Art
On the River Exe, Exeter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shaldon, Seen from Teignmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Sharpham House on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
Private Collection
The Estuary of the River Taw
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop's Palace
Private Collection
St Vincent's Rocks from Nightingale Valley, near Bristol
Private Collection
Bristol Cathedral, from College Green
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Bristol Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
Tate, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly a West-Country Tor
Tate, London
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
A House Reflected in the Waters of an Estuary
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
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
This sketch of a castle seen from a river appeared at an auction in 1995, when it was identified as Okehampton on the basis of an inscription on the back. The pencil drawing does not appear to have been photographed, but it seems from the description in the sale catalogue that it depicts the same view seen in a watercolour in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario (TG1276). This view has now been definitively identified as showing Okehampton Castle on the basis of a comparison with an earlier engraving (see TG1276 figure 1), and the water must be the West Okement river, with the ruins seen from the south, therefore. If this pencil drawing is indeed a view of Okehampton, then it was very likely produced, together with another on-the-spot colour sketch of the castle (TG1277), on Girtin’s journey between Plymouth and Bideford, which marked the turning point of his West Country tour in November 1797. The status of the drawing as an on-the-spot study might also be confirmed by the presence of another sketch on the back, but no image of that has been traced either.
1797 - 1798
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
TG1276
(?) 1797
Okehampton Castle
TG1277