- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Four Studies of a Cart
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 29 × 21.7 cm, 11 ⅜ × 8 ½ in
- Inscription
‘Girtin’ on the back, lower right; ‘Royal’ on the back, lower centre
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Miscellaneous Studies
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1522
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 283 as 'Studies of a Cart'; 'c. 1798-9'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960); given to Tom Girtin (1913–94), c.1938; bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975
Exhibition History
Cambridge, 1920, no.52; New Haven, 1986a, no.62 as ’c.1798’
Bibliography
Sparrow, 1902, p.100
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 East
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
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
Hawes Fine Art
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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, University of Manchester
A House Seen across a Lake, 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
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
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
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
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
This set of four studies of the same hay cart, seen from different angles, was presumably taken from life, and at first sight it would appear to be a simple case of Girtin making sketches of a subject that might subsequently find a place in his picturesque rural scenes. An Open Field with a Cart and Horses (TG1523) and Kirkstall Village (TG1639) both feature similar vehicles. No doubt the artist, city born and bred, needed to study at least some of the details of country life and labour if his compositions were, if not to impress with their depth of rural knowledge, as with the works of his contemporary John Constable (1776–1837), then at least not to appear merely conventional. However, there are a number of features that suggest that there is something else going on here too. The manner in which the studies of the carts are carefully placed across the sheet of paper, for instance, combined with the introduction of some shadows and an indication of the ground on which the vehicle stands, is reminiscent of Studies of Goats (TG1518), which Girtin appears to have produced with an eye on the market for prints for amateurs to copy. Indeed, the format of both drawings recalls the prints after the sketches of George Morland (1763–1804) that were published in the mid-1790s by John Harris (c.1740–1811) as a series of ‘Sketch Books’ (see TG1518 figure 1). This was the precursor to the Microcosm of William Henry Pyne (1770–1843), which similarly laid out pages of drawings of various types of carts to help the amateur artist to introduce convincing accessories into their landscape compositions (Myers, 1996, p.234). Girtin’s views of a cart surely include more detail than he could ever need as a professional landscape artist, and they are presented in a way that would have amounted to a considerable waste of labour if all that he needed was an aide memoire. I therefore suspect that they too were made with an eye on the print trade.
The first recorded owner of the drawing was the artist’s son, Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74), though this does not necessarily mean either that he inherited it or that the sketch remained unsold in the studio at his father’s death, as he is known to have bought a number of works later in life. Whether or not the work was sold to a publisher and simply remained unused, it is clear that none of the drawings that can plausibly be identified as having been produced for reproduction for the amateur market were actually engraved, including An Inn Yard, Edgware Road (TG1747), which has the strongest claim to being a demonstration piece.
1798 - 1799
An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
TG1523
1801
Kirkstall Village
TG1639
1797 - 1798
Studies of Goats
TG1518
1801
An Inn Yard, Edgware Road, Paddington
TG1747