- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Exeter Cathedral, from the South
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 38.5 × 54 cm, 15 ⅛ × 21 ¼ in
- Inscription
'Girtin' lower left, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1259
- Description Source(s)
- Sale Catalogue
Provenance
James Worthington (lent to London, 1875); ... private collection, Devon; then by descent; Phillips, 8 October 1984, lot 57; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, £14,000; bought from them by the Museum, 1985
Exhibition History
London, 1875, no.15 as 'Exeter'; Agnew’s, 1985, no.95
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
Footnotes
- 1 The financial records of the artist's brother John Girtin (1773–1821) include two loans he made to Thomas Girtin during the trip. The records are transcribed in full in the Documents section of the Archive (1804 – Item 1).
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About this Work
This view of Exeter Cathedral from the river, with the two Norman transept towers prominent on its elevated location, was presumably based on an untraced sketch that Girtin made on his West Country tour in the autumn of 1797. The artist is documented as having been in the city in early November, sketching the interior of the cathedral for his earliest patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99) (TG1256) (Chancery, Income and Expenses, 1804).1 At the same time, the artist also made a drawing of the sixteenth-century Guildhall (TG1255), as well as a number of views along the river Exe that yielded two further studio watercolours, Exeter, from Trew’s Weir (TG1258) and On the River Exe (TG1261). This view is taken from a closer viewpoint than the former, and from a stretch of the river Exe known as Haven Banks, though it also shows the view north. As with the smaller watercolour of the view from Trew’s Weir, the ‘magnificent Cathedral, towering high over the summit of trees’ seen from this stretch of the river has, as a contemporary visitor noted, a fine accompaniment of ‘Wood, water & Villa’s’ that typify ‘the Richness, the fertility, the Picturesque scenery of the County’ as a whole (quoted in Hunt, 1984, p.31). From this angle, therefore, the artist did not have to resort to obscuring the stretch of modern buildings to the west under a showery sky, so that the building seems to emerge naturally from its semi-rural setting lit by a benevolent late afternoon sun.
1797
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
TG1256
(?) 1797
The Guildhall, Exeter
TG1255
1798 - 1799
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
TG1258
1799 - 1800
On the River Exe, Exeter
TG1261