- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) after James Moore (1762-1799)
- Title
-
- Dunnottar Castle in a Thunderstorm
- Date
- 1792 - 1793
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and pen and ink on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 16.5 × 22.5 cm, 6 ½ × 8 ⅞ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour; Work after an Amateur Artist
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; Scottish View; Weather Effects
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG0150
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 72 as 'Dunstanborough Castle, Northumberland'; and as by Thomas Girtin 'possibly after George Robertson'; 'Late 1794'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001, 2002 and 2016
Provenance
James Moore (1762–99); his widow, Mary Moore (née Howett) (d.1835); bequeathed to Anne Miller (1802–90) (lent to London, 1875); bequeathed to Edward Mansel Miller (1829–1912); bequeathed to Helen Louisa Miller (1842–1915); bought by Francis Pierrepont Barnard (1854–1931), 1912, £15; his widow, Isabella Barnard; bequeathed to the Museum, 1934
Exhibition History
Manchester, 1857, no.71 as ’Storm, Lightning, &c, Sea Coast’; London, 1875, no.66* as ’Effect of Storm’; Manchester, 1975, no.6 as ’Dunstanborough Castle’; Hamburg, 1976, no.311; Newcastle, 1982, no.73; London, 1983b, no.42; Harewood, 1999, no.3; London, 2002, no.36 as ’Dunnottar Castle, Scotland, in a Thunderstorm’; Oxford, 2015, no.28
Bibliography
Mayne, 1949, p.99; Lemaître, 1955, p.181; Bury, 1958, p.24; Brown, 1982, p.328, no.717 as 'Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland, in a Thunderstorm’; Thornes, 1999, p.179; Thornes, 2000, p.367; Bryant, 2005, p.48
Place depicted
Other entries in First Steps as a Professional Artist:
James Moore and British Antiquities
An Ancient House, Possibly in Sussex
Newport Museum and Art Gallery
An Interior View of the Ruined East End of Tynemouth Priory Church
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Jedburgh Abbey, from the East
Private Collection
Craigmillar Castle, near Edinburgh
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of Exeter Cathedral, and St Mary Major
The Mellon Bank Collection, Pittsburgh
Stonehenge during a Thunderstorm
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The East End of Tynemouth Priory Church
Private Collection
Kidwelly Castle
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Ludlow Castle: The Gatehouse
Private Collection
Dumbarton Rock and the Castle, from the North West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Jedburgh Abbey, from the East
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Interior of the Albion Mills, Southwark, after the Fire
Private Collection
Kinloss Abbey: The Abbot's House
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
Conwy Castle, Looking West
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Duff House, from the South
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Unidentified Round Tower
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Glasgow Cathedral, from the North East
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Part of the Ruins of Alton Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of Valle Crucis Abbey Church
Private Collection
The Albion Mills, Southwark, after the Fire
Newport Museum and Art Gallery
Bamburgh Castle, from the East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Ruins of the East End of St Andrews Cathedral
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Touchstones Rochdale
Colchester Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Great Keep, Kenilworth Castle
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Castle Rock, Edinburgh
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
London: The Demolition of the Old Porch of the Guildhall
London Metropolitan Archives
The Gatehouse, Denbigh Castle
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kirkstall Abbey, from the South East
Private Collection
Buildwas Abbey
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
The West Front of Brechin Cathedral, with the Round Tower
Private Collection
The Great Gate, St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Conwy Castle: The Bakehouse Tower
Private Collection
Lindisfarne Priory Church, Looking West from the Choir
Tate, London
Kirkstall Abbey, from the North West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Tithe Barn at Abbotsbury, with St Catherine's Chapel on the Hill
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kirkstall Abbey, from the South East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Dunstaffnage Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Spynie Palace, near Elgin
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Dunnottar Castle in a Thunderstorm
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Part of the Ruins of Croxden Abbey, from the East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Great Keep, Kenilworth Castle, with Leicester's Gatehouse in the Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Battle Church, from the South East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The East End of Valle Crucis Abbey Church
Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
The Gatehouse, Denbigh Castle
Private Collection
The Ruins of Lewes Castle, from the West
Private Collection
Ewell Church, with a Funeral Procession Approaching
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Rustic Figures in a Landscape, with Pigs
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
St Peter's Church, Bexhill, from the East
Private Collection
Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Cow Grazing near a Pond, with a Church Tower Beyond
Private Collection
Duff House, from the River
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Landscape with a Shepherd and Flock
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Melrose Abbey, from the South West
Private Collection
A Cottage, Said to Be near Battle in Sussex
Private Collection
Ely Cathedral, from the South East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The East End of Valle Crucis Abbey Church
Private Collection
The East End of Valle Crucis Abbey Church
Private Collection
Lindisfarne Priory Church, Looking West from the Choir
Private Collection, Scotland
Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Pevensey Castle: The North Tower with the Gatehouse in the Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Spire of Salisbury Cathedral, from Chorister's Green
Private Collection
The Landgate, Rye
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Landgate, Rye
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Gatehouse, Saltwood Castle
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Gatehouse, Saltwood Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Strand Gate, Winchelsea
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The West Tower, All Saints' Church, Hastings
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Rochester Castle, from the South
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of Byland Abbey
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
All Saints' Church, Hastings, from the North East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Ancient House, Possibly in Sussex
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Kenilworth Castle: The View from the South
Private Collection
Tolleshunt D’Arcy Church
Private Collection
St Peter's Church, Bexhill, from the South East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Ruined Gatehouse, Saltwood Castle, Seen from the North
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Ruined Gatehouse, Pevensey Castle, from the East
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Ruined Gatehouse, Pevensey Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Gatehouse, Battle Abbey
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown
Carlisle Cathedral, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Gatehouse, Battle Abbey
Private Collection
St Mary the Virgin, Eastbourne
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Unidentified Landscape with a Figure Seated on a Gate under a Tree
Private Collection
The West Front of Crowland Abbey
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of Crowland Abbey
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Pevensey Castle: View of the North and East Towers
Private Collection
The Ruins of the Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
All Saints' Church, Hastings, from the North West
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Refectory, St Martin’s Priory, Dover
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Saltwood Castle: The Gatehouse from a Farmyard
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Spynie Palace: A Coastal View
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Clement's Church, with Hastings in the Distance
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The East End of the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea
Private Collection
The East End of the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Tower, St Clement's Church, Hastings; Studies of a Horse in Harness and Numerous Architectural Details
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Undercliff, near Hastings
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Ypres Tower, Rye
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Unidentified Village with a Half-Timbered House
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hastings: The View across the Beach to Castle Hill
Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Hastings Castle and Priory Bridge
Hastings Museum and Art Gallery
Tolleshunt D’Arcy Church
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
Battle Abbey Gatehouse, from the South West
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
St Clement’s Church, Sandwich, from the North
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
St Peter's Church, Bexhill: The West Tower
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Glasgow Cathedral, from the South West
Bolton Museum and Art Gallery
The East End of Icklesham Church
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Refectory, St Martin’s Priory, Dover
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Gatehouse of Beckingham Hall, Tolleshunt Major
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Glamis Castle (Macbeth's Castle)
Private Collection, Norfolk
One of the Alard Monuments in the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
One of the Alard Monuments in the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Thatched Barn with Farm Animals
Private Collection
A Timber-Frame House with a Hill Beyond
Tate, London
A Farmyard with Pigs Drinking at a Pond
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
A Barn with a Figure, Cattle and Poultry
Courtauld Gallery, London
Malmesbury: The Market Cross
Athelstan Museum, Malmesbury
An Unidentified Country Church and Churchyard
Private Collection, Norfolk
Footnotes
- 1 The document detailing the payments made to the young Girtin by Moore is transcribed in full in the Documents section of the Archive (1792–93 – Item 1).
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About this Work
Girtin’s second watercolour of Dunnottar Castle, shown perched high on a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, was made after a drawing by the amateur artist and antiquarian James Moore (1762–99) (see the source image above), and the young artist never actually visited the site himself. Girtin’s earliest patron undertook an extensive tour of the country in the late summer of 1792 and his sketch of the castle looking west to the fourteenth-century tower house is one of three he made on 5 September. Girtin is documented as having worked for Moore between October 1792 and February 1793 for a fee of six shillings a day, producing watercolours generally measuring roughly 6 ½ × 8 ½ in (16.5 × 21.5 cm), as here (Moore, Payments, 1792–93).1 In all Girtin painted seventy or so small watercolours after Moore’s sketches, including about thirty compositions derived from drawings made on the trip to Scotland. Moore employed other artists to work up his sketches for reproduction, including Girtin’s master, Edward Dayes (1763–1804), but it seems that the seventeen-year-old artist, who may still have been an apprentice at this date, was tasked with simply producing the best watercolours he could from the little more than functional records produced by the antiquarian. Moore’s collection of watercolours by Girtin, which eventually numbered over a hundred, remained in the ownership of his family until it was broken up after 1912, when this work was acquired by a descendant of the artist.
Moore’s drawing, which almost uniquely for the amateur is coloured, gives no hint of the spectacular transformation that Girtin was to undertake; so radical indeed was the change he effected that the watercolour was wrongly identified as showing Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland for much of the twentieth century. As with the other view of Dunnottar (TG0124), Girtin cut Moore’s composition at the top so that the considerably enhanced cliffs left and right loom over the fragile remnants of the castle. But, in contrast to the benign light that illuminates the tower in the companion view, here a bolt of lightning and all that nature at its most violent can deliver threatens the structure with destruction, and in the foreground Moore’s image of a placid inlet is translated into a turbulent mass that has few parallels even in Girtin’s later works. It is highly unlikely that Girtin had even seen the sea when he painted this watercolour around 1792–93, and it therefore represents an extraordinary feat of imagination, so much so that the meteorologist John Thornes has described the depiction of lightning as ‘as good as any up to that time’ (Thornes, 1999, p.179).
The paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used as a white wove writing paper, probably manufactured by James Whatman the Younger (1741–98) (Smith, 2002b, p.58; Bower, Report). It is likely that this was supplied by Girtin’s patron and that it was used for all of the works he commissioned.
1792 - 1793
Dunnottar Castle
TG0124