This pencil drawing by Girtin of the partially ruined abbey church at Kelso, seen from the north west, was copied from an engraving (see the source image above) that in turn was made after a watercolour by Thomas Hearne (1744–1817), and it therefore predates by at least a year the artist’s first visit to the Scottish Borders. Overlaying images of the engraving and the pencil drawing confirms that, although Girtin subtly altered the composition by opening out the perspective of the north west transept so that more of facade can be seen, in all other respects the copy follows the print exactly, albeit that the figures of the gravediggers are omitted. The same exercise conducted with another similar view of the remains of the abbey (see figure 1) by Girtin’s most significant early patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99), who provided material for numerous views of Scottish churches, illustrates the qualitative differences between the sketches of amateurs and professionals. Moore’s sketch – which, initially at least, appears to be the source for Girtin’s drawing – thus gets the proportions of the building spectacularly wrong and confuses details such as the oculus window on the transept facade, rendering the oval as a circle. Hearne’s image, in contrast, provided Girtin with a composition that balanced the needs of the antiquarian market, which required accurate representations of the nation’s ancient remains, with the desires of those customers whose interest tended more towards landscape watercolours and for whom a close and low viewpoint offered greater drama. Both sectors of the market might have been expected to approve of the only significant differences between Girtin’s drawing and its source – the absence of the gravediggers and the removal of the bell rope draped across the facade – both of which were signs that the shell of the transept currently housed the village church. The makeshift roof shown in the print is carefully fudged by Girtin so that there is nothing to suggest that we are not looking at a romantic ruin rather than a makeshift accommodation of the local parish church.

Girtin made a series of copies after Hearne’s composition around 1795–96, both from prints after his drawings and from the watercolours themselves. Many of them – including another Scottish subject, Melrose Abbey: The View to the South Transept (TG0868) – were produced for another of his early patrons, the amateur John Henderson (1764–1843), though there is no evidence that this view of Kelso was ever in Henderson’s possession. Indeed, the appearance on the art market in 2019 of a small watercolour based on this drawing (TG0270a) suggests that the outline was made for Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) and that, like another pencil copy of a Hearne composition engraved for Antiquities of Great-Britain (Hearne, 1786–1807), Glasgow High Street, Looking towards the Cathedral (TG0296), it ultimately came from Monro’s collection. The two outlines are roughly the same size, and, like the drawing considered here, Glasgow High Street was used as the basis for one of the small sketch-like watercolours that Monro commissioned in bulk from Girtin and that were sold at the patron’s posthumous sale as the work of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851).

Notes in the Girtin Archive suggest that Girtin may have been responsible for another view of Kelso Abbey, this time seen from the east, and that it repeated the composition of a watercolour signed and dated by his master, Edward Dayes (1763–1804) (see figure 2) (Girtin Archive, 12/4). Both watercolours would therefore have been made after a sketch by Moore (Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1975.3.703)). However, the watercolour does not seem to have been photographed and it has thus not been possible to confirm the attribution to Girtin.

(?) 1795

Melrose Abbey: The View to the South Transept

TG0868

1795 - 1796

Kelso Abbey, from the North West

TG0270a

1794 - 1795

Glasgow High Street, Looking towards the Cathedral

TG0296