This view of Lincoln Cathedral, shown from the north west with the outer walls of the castle seen to the right, is one of two watercolours that Girtin made after a pencil sketch that he appears to have executed on his first significant trip outside London, undertaken in the summer of 1794 with his patron James Moore (1762–99) (the other being TG1005). I say ‘appears’ because there is some question about the status of the drawing on which the watercolour is based (TG1004). Thus, although it is dated 1794, it may just have been copied by Girtin in that year, working from an earlier on-the-spot sketch by Moore, perhaps from his 1789 visit to Lincoln. The patron was certainly the first owner of this watercolour, and, in terms of its smaller scale and looser treatment, it resembles the hundred or so watercolours that Moore commissioned from the young Girtin after the amateur’s often feeble sketches (such as TG0111) rather than the more substantial view of Lincoln (TG1008) that Girtin also produced for Moore from his own detailed on-the-spot drawing (TG1007). On balance, however, it seems that Girtin’s sketch may have been made in 1794 after all, but, rather than it being an on-the-spot sketch, it could be that the artist worked over and enhanced the lines first sketched by his patron. This would help to explain why, alone amongst the cathedral subjects based on Girtin’s sketches from 1794, this work adopts a smaller format and lacks the same careful attention to architectural detail – with the castle walls, for instance, being reduced to a barely readable block of colour.

A proper understanding of the status of the source for this watercolour may also help with the puzzling fact that the engraving that was made from it (see the print after, above) is inscribed as being ‘from a Sketch by Ja^s. Moore Esq^r.’, when it clearly reproduces Girtin’s watercolour with a distinctive figure group that is quite different from either the horse and rider depicted in the pencil drawing (TG1004) or the horse and cart seen in the slightly smaller second version of the composition (TG1005). If Girtin created the watercolour based on a pencil sketch he himself worked over a Moore outline, then the print’s credit line has at least some claim to be true. Whatever the case, the significant point is that this distant view of cathedral and castle is more suited to reproduction as a picturesque scene in The Copper-Plate Magazine (Walker, 1792–1802) than the carefully detailed images of some of the nation’s finest Gothic buildings that were the primary outcome of Girtin’s 1794 tour. Moore lent at least half a dozen of his small Girtin drawings to the engraver and publisher John Walker (active 1776–1802) (such as TG0104), though, as in this case, there is no evidence that they were specially made for engraving. Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak dated the work to 1795, claiming that as one of the ‘later drawings based on a sketch by Moore’, it held a special place in Girtin’s development as an artist, displaying a new ‘warmth and richness’ of colouring (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.56). It may therefore be that Moore lent his drawing to Walker for engraving as an example of Girtin’s development as an artist, as much as for the subject matter, in which case the fact that it was reproduced as the work of the amateur is particularly ironic.

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

1792 - 1793

Glasgow Cathedral, from the North East

TG0111

1794

Lincoln Cathedral, from the West

TG1008

(?) 1794

Lincoln Cathedral, from the West

TG1007

1794

Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West; Unidentified Landscape

TG1004

1795 - 1796

Lincoln Cathedral: A Distant View from the North West

TG1005

1792 - 1793

Jedburgh Abbey, from the East

TG0104