This view of the Royal Exchange, part of the city of London’s commercial and financial heartland, with St Paul’s in the distance, was copied from an aquatint by Thomas Malton the Younger (1748–1804) (see the source image above) and was executed for one of Girtin’s most important early patrons, the amateur artist John Henderson (1764–1843). Girtin first came across Henderson at the home of another crucial early patron, Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), where he was employed, together with his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), to produce watercolour copies after the outline drawings of many artists, including shipping scenes by Henderson himself. Latterly, Henderson engaged Girtin to produce a series of watercolour copies after prints in his own collection, including groups by modern British artists such as Thomas Hearne (1744–1817) (such as TG0867) and European masters such as Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto) (1697–1768) (such as TG0898). This view of the south-west front of the Exchange, with its magnificent tower more suited to a church than a trading centre, is one of four watercolours that Henderson commissioned from Girtin after prints featured in a series of twelve London scenes published by Malton between 1781 and 1787 that were a precursor to his better-known publication A Picturesque Tour through the Cities of London and Westminster (Malton, 1792–1801). All four of Girtin’s watercolours are now in the collection of the British Museum, to which they were bequeathed by Henderson’s son along with the prints on which they are based.

Girtin’s earliest copies for Henderson tended to be fairly mechanical affairs; however, by around 1796, when the Malton copies appear to have been produced, the artist was operating with a greater degree of licence. Unlike in the two square-shaped compositions (TG0870 and TG0872), Girtin retained Malton’s basic composition but transformed his rather stiff architectural study into a vibrant street scene. Malton was an architectural draughtsman rather than a landscape topographer, and his London views focus on the city’s outstanding buildings, with angles chosen carefully to display their most important features, and in the text that accompanied a later print of the subject he characteristically complained that the shops along the side of the Exchange spoilt its visual impact (Malton, 1792–1801, vol.2, p.79). In contrast, Girtin took every opportunity to add to the range and number of figures shown in the street and on its pavements, and he was careful to update the clothes worn by those that he retained from Malton’s aquatint, so that they sport the fashions of the day rather than the date of the print (1781). The figures are not only more numerous in Girtin’s watercolour but also reflect a wider cross-section of society, and are noticeably less neat and tidy, offering an image of exuberant trading activity as a correlative to the business enacted within the Exchange itself. Thus, whilst the rather mechanical figures in Malton’s print seem to inhabit a different world from the sharply outlined buildings, Girtin was able to employ a more sophisticated formal means to unify the two different worlds of commerce. The use of a broken pen and ink outline for both the figures and the architectural details ensures a visual harmony shaped from a lively sense of movement.

Copying the prints of Malton for Henderson could have been little more than hack work for Girtin, but the watercolours collectively display a concern and interest with the street life of the artist’s native city that was to characterise his whole career, as seen in views ranging from the places he lived in London (such as TG1745) to the panorama of the capital that dominated his last years (see, for example, TG1851). Indeed, Girtin may have already depicted the Royal Exchange. A lost drawing, probably by the young artist, was engraved for Charles Taylor’s (1756–1823) publication The Temple of Taste (see print after TG0031). The vista of St Paul’s here recalls a similar view of the cathedral he knew well as a child growing up in St Martin’s-le-Grand (TG1396), and the teeming street scene has the feel of a try-out for that archetypal image of London life.

On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support employed by Girtin as a white wove drawing paper, probably manufactured by James Whatman the Younger (1741–98) at the Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent (Bower, Report). This is the same paper used for two of the other watercolours made for Henderson from aquatints by Malton (TG0870 and TG0872).

(?) 1795

Lanercost Priory Church: An Interior View of the Ruins from the South Transept

TG0867

1797 - 1798

Venice: The Grand Canal, from Santa Maria della Carità, Looking to San Marco Basin

TG0898

1795 - 1796

London: The Mansion House

TG0870

(?) 1795

London: St George’s, Hanover Square

TG0872

(?) 1801

St George’s Row, Tyburn

TG1745

(?) 1801

The Albion Mills: Colour Study for the ‘Eidometropolis’, Section One

TG1851

1790 - 1791

The Royal Exchange

TG0031

1795 - 1796

St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand

TG1396

1795 - 1796

London: The Mansion House

TG0870

(?) 1795

London: St George’s, Hanover Square

TG0872