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Works Thomas Girtin after (?) James Moore

Haughmond Abbey

1794 - 1795

 

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) after (?) James Moore (1762-1799)
Title
  • Haughmond Abbey
Date
1794 - 1795
Medium and Support
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
20.3 × 27.9 cm, 8 × 11 in
Object Type
Studio Watercolour; Work after an Amateur Artist
Subject Terms
Monastic Ruins; Shropshire View

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0214
Description Source(s)
Girtin and Loshak, 1954

Provenance

Lewis Loyd (1811–91) (lent to Manchester, 1857); then by descent to Captain Edward Noel Farnham Loyd (1881-1962); his sale, Christie’s, 30 April 1937, lot 15 as 'Haugham Abbey, Shropshire'; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, £6 16s 6d (stock no.2453)

Exhibition History

Manchester, 1857, no.68 as ’Haugham Abbey’; Agnew’s, 1938, no.81

Bibliography

Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.208 as 'Untraced ... Haughton Abbey, Shropshire'

About this Work

This watercolour by Girtin of the ruined abbey church of Haughmond in Shropshire has not been seen in public since 1937 and the work does not seem to have been photographed. Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) presumably saw the watercolour and approved the attribution, though he was unable to trace it for his catalogue of the works of his great-grandfather that he published in 1954 with David Loshak (Girtin and Loshak, 1954). Girtin is not known to have visited this part of Shropshire and it is possible that the watercolour was made after a sketch by the artist’s first patron, the amateur and antiquarian James Moore (1762–99), who commissioned a number of watercolours from his own drawings of the county’s ancient castles and ruined abbeys, including Ludlow Castle: The Gatehouse (TG0098) and Buildwas Abbey (TG0136). Another possibility is that the work was copied from a sketch by William Pearson (1772–1849), whose Select Views of the Antiquities of Shropshire includes two views of what he called ‘Haghmond Abbey’ (Pearson, 1807). Pearson appears to have provided Girtin with the source for another Shropshire view, Wroxeter: The Roman Wall (TG1353), and if he was the source for Haughmond Abbey then this watercolour should probably date from around 1800.

1792 - 1793

Ludlow Castle: The Gatehouse

TG0098

1792 - 1793

Buildwas Abbey

TG0136

1798 - 1799

Wroxeter: The Roman Wall

TG1353

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

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