- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Great Bookham Church, from the East
- Date
- 1795 - 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 19 × 31 cm, 7 ½ × 12 ⅛ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Parish Church; Surrey View
-
- Collection
-
- Private Collection, Norfolk
- (I-E-22)
- Catalogue Number
- TG0859
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and April 2022
Provenance
William Esdaile (1758–1837), by 1835; his posthumous sale, Christie's, 25 June 1840, lot 1398, as 'A village church, water colours', 19s; ... J. Palser & Sons (stock no.16378); bought by Leggatt Brothers, London; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, 27 February 1912 (stock no.7653); bought by Sir Hickman Bacon (1855–1945), 1 October 1912, £120; then by descent
Exhibition History
Arts Council, 1946, no.73
Bibliography
Described in Tax-Exempt Heritage Assets list as 'Great Bootham Church, near Leatherhead' by Thomas Girtin
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

St Albans Abbey, from the North West
Private Collection

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

Westminster Abbey, Seen from Green Park and the Queen's Basin
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

A Study of a Woman Reading; A Slight Study of a Seated Woman
Private Collection

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 Nicholas in Great Bookham, seen from the east, is one of two watercolours that show the picturesque Surrey church covered in ivy (the other being TG0858, taken from the north east). Although neither work comes with any evidence about its early provenance, it is likely that at least one was commissioned by Girtin’s early patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Great Bookham is a kilometre or so to the west of Fetcham, where Monro rented a cottage between the years 1795 and 1805 (see TG0857 figure 2), and it appears that Girtin joined his patron there and that he sketched 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 Monro’s posthumous sale in 1833 lists a number of Surrey scenes by Girtin, including views of the nearby Box Hill and Norbury Park, as well as another local church, at Effingham (TG0345) (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. At least four of the church views that Girtin painted from sketches made in the vicinity of Fetcham have been identified (including TG0345 and TG0857), though neither the view of Box Hill nor the one of Norbury Park has yet been traced (Piggott, 1994, pp.8–10). These, I suspect, may yet be discovered amongst the many watercolours with those titles that are currently attributed to Turner. This view shows the fourteenth-century chancel of St Nicholas’ Church with the picturesque weatherboarded west tower clad in ivy. From this angle, more of the churchyard is visible than in the view from the north east, including a series of tombs that led early writers to mistakenly identify the church as Stoke Poges, the site of Thomas Gray’s (1716–71) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751).
Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak did not include this watercolour in their catalogue of Girtin’s watercolour, and some doubts linger about the attribution. A number of artists associated with Monro depicted the church, including John Varley (1778–1842) and Henry Edridge (1768–1821) (see figure 1), as well as Turner (see TG0858 figure 1), whose view from the north east is very close to Girtin’s other watercolour, and it is conceivable that this work was produced by another member of the patron’s circle. Linnell himself recorded that he and William Henry Hunt (1790–1864) were ‘set to make copies’ of the sketches that Girtin and Turner executed on their trips with Monro, and he thought ‘the doctor used to sell their copies for originals’ (Story, 1892, vol.1, p.41). However, although the pencil work in this watercolour is uncharacteristically fussy and the uncertain command of perspective means that the structure of the building is unconvincing, I am still on balance minded to believe that the watercolour is by Girtin, though it may be earlier in date than the view from the north east, and perhaps executed from another artist’s sketch. This might account for the uncertain perspective and explain why he went on to produce a second, and altogether more mature, watercolour of the same subject, presumably based, this time, on his own on-the-spot sketch.
1796 - 1797
Great Bookham Church
TG0858
1797 - 1798
Effingham Church
TG0345
1796 - 1797
Durham Cathedral, from the South West
TG0919
1797 - 1798
Effingham Church
TG0345
1797 - 1798
Capel Church
TG0857