- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Effingham Church
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 29.2 × 43.8 cm, 11 ½ × 17 ¼ in
- Inscription
‘Effingham Church, Surrey’ on the back, hitherto misread as 'Stellingham'
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Parish Church; Surrey View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG0345
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 246 as 'Called Stellingham Church'; '1797–8'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and June 2024
Provenance
Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 1 July 1833, lot 116 as 'Two views of Effingham church'; bought by 'Maine', £13 13s; ... V. Newman; his sale, Christie's, 3 March 1939, lot 35 as 'Effingham Church, Surrey'; bought by the Squire Gallery, London, £42; Sir Thomas Barlow (1845–1945); his sale, Sotheby's, 28 June 1944, lot 25 as 'Stellingham Church'; bought by P & D Colnaghi & Co., £60; James Leslie Wright (1862–1954); presented to the Museum, 1953
Exhibition History
London, 1949, no.192 as 'Stelingham Church'
Bibliography
Rose, 1980, p.57 as 'Stelingham Church'
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
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
St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
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
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 the church of St Lawrence in Effingham in Surrey, seen from the east, has in recent years been wrongly titled ‘Stellingham Church’ on the basis of a misreading of an inscription on the back of the drawing. However, although the church has been much restored, Girtin’s watercolour is still recognisable as Effingham and can therefore be linked with some degree of confidence with a lot described as 'Two views of Effingham church' that was sold at the posthumous sale of the artist’s early patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 1 July 1833, lot 116). Effingham is just a few kilometres west of Fetcham, where Monro rented a cottage between the years 1795 and 1805 (see TG0857 figure 2), and it is likely that Girtin joined his patron there to make sketches in the area. John Linnell (1792–1882), who knew Monro at a slightly later date, claimed that the patron took Girtin, as well as his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), ‘out to one or other of his country houses or elsewhere to sketch for him from Nature’ (Story, 1892, vol.1, p.41), and the catalogue of his posthumous sale lists a number of other Surrey scenes by Girtin, including views of the nearby Box Hill and Norbury Park, as well as Capel Church (TG0857) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 1 July 1833, lots 112, 114, 116 and 119). Thus, in addition to the hundreds of copies of outlines by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) that Girtin realised as watercolours with Turner, as well as the larger architectural subjects that he depicted for Monro, such as Durham Cathedral, from the South West (TG0919), the patron also acquired a group of local topographical scenes that had a more personal resonance. As many as four of the churches that Girtin painted from sketches made in the vicinity of Fetcham have been identified (including TG0857 and TG0858), making for a coherent group of Surrey subjects, though neither the view of Box Hill nor the one of Norbury Park has yet been traced (Piggott, 1994, pp.8–10). I suspect that they may yet be discovered amongst one of the many watercolours with those titles that are currently attributed to Turner.
Recent research has revealed that Girtin painted a second view of the church of St Lawrence in Effingham (TG1447) showing the south transept seen to the left in this work. This has hitherto been catalogued as A Country Churchyard and the catalogue entry has consequently been extensively revised. It is likely, therefore, that this watercolour was the second of the 'views of Effingham church' sold from Monro's collection in 1833.
1797 - 1798
Capel Church
TG0857
1796 - 1797
Durham Cathedral, from the South West
TG0919
1797 - 1798
Capel Church
TG0857
1796 - 1797
Great Bookham Church
TG0858
1798 - 1799
A Country Churchyard
TG1447