- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Lincoln Cathedral
- Date
- (?) 1794
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 11.4 × 18.4 cm, 4 ½ × 7 ¼ in
- Part of
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Cathedral View; Lincolnshire
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1012
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 85 as '1794'
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin and Loshak, 1954
Provenance
J.R' - collector's mark; the Executors of the late Margaret Fife of Nunnington Hall (Girtin and Loshak, 1954)
Exhibition History
Scarborough, 1950, no.24Place depicted
Other entries in The 1794 Midland Tour with James Moore, Together with Subsequent Watercolours and Studies
Newark Castle: The Gatehouse Seen from the North
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Landscape with a Distant Church
Abbott and Holder, London
Jedburgh Abbey, from the Riverbank
Abbott and Holder, London
An Unidentified Landscape with Distant Buildings
Private Collection
Winchester Cathedral, from the North East
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Southwell Minster, from the North West
Southwell Minster, The Deanery
Southwell Minster, from the North West
Private Collection
The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral
Private Collection
The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West; Unidentified Landscape
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West
Private Collection
Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Lincoln Cathedral, from the West
Lincoln: The Collection
Lincoln Cathedral, from the River Witham
Private Collection
Lincoln Cathedral, Viewed from Below
Towneley Hall Art Gallery & Museum
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Part of the North-West Tower of the West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
Private Collection
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
Courtauld Gallery, London
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
The Ancient Charnel House, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon
The Ancient Charnel House, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Ancient Charnel House, Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
Private Collection, Cumbria
Southwell Minster, from the North West
Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea
Southwell Minster, from the North West
Southwell Minster, The Deanery
Southwell Minster, from the North West
Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston
Boston Church, from the South West
Private Collection
Tattershall Castle, from the North East
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Tattershall Castle, from the South West
Private Collection
The West Front of the Gatehouse of Thornton Abbey
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
The East Front of the Gatehouse of Thornton Abbey
Private Collection
An Unidentified Landscape (A Moorland View)
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Unidentified Landscape, Known as 'The Pool'
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Footnotes
- 1 The text accompanying the engraving of ‘Lincoln Cathedral’ (see print after TG1008) notes that ‘James Moore … visited this Cathedral in the year 1794, accompanied by Mr. Girtin’.
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About this Work
This small sketch of Lincoln Cathedral has not been traced and no photograph is known to exist. However, it was included in Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak’s 1954 catalogue of Girtin’s work, where it was described as showing ‘The Cathedral left, clustered about by houses seen from the north east across a river; a gateway right’ (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.145). The description does not tally with any of Girtin’s finished watercolour views of the cathedral that were taken from the west (such as TG1008) or the north west (such as TG1005), from where the great west end with its twin towers is seen to good effect. The sketch for the latter composition is dated 1794 (TG1004), and there can be little doubt that this view too was taken in that year, when Girtin is recorded as having visited the city in the company of his earliest patron, James Moore (1762–99) (Howlett, 1805).1 Other dated drawings from 1794 include two monochrome sketches that were executed on paper and that have the same measurements as the sheet on which this view of Lincoln was drawn (TG0186 and TG0188). Without any photographic record of the drawing it is difficult to be sure, but it seems that this view of Lincoln came from a distinctive group of drawings, seven of which were sold together at auction in 1936 (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 27 March 1936, lot 1), and that all of the material came from the same sketchbook, which was split up at an early date. It appears, therefore, that in addition to making detailed outline drawings on his 1794 tour with Moore, Girtin executed monochrome studies in order to capture the fall of light and shadow, much as he was to do on his second sketching tour, to the north east, in 1796 (TG1105).
1794
Lincoln Cathedral, from the West
TG1008
1795 - 1796
Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West
TG1005
1794
Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West; Unidentified Landscape
TG1004
1794
A Cloud Study
TG0186
1794
Jedburgh Abbey, from the Riverbank
TG0188
(?) 1796
Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
TG1105