- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Unknown Artist after Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Okehampton Castle
- Date
- 1800 - 1805
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 24.1 × 33.7 cm, 9 ½ × 13 ¼ in
- Object Type
- Copy after Thomas Girtin; Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1279
- Description Source(s)
- Gallery Website
Provenance
Victor Rienaecker (1887–1972) (Cundall, 1922); Walter de Zoete (1845–1934); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 5 April 1935, lot 27 as 'A View at Oakhampton'; bought by the Fine Art Society, London, £33 12s; Walter C. Hetherington (d.1978); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 14 February 1978, lot 60 as 'After Thomas Girtin', £100; Mr and Mrs H. J. M. Watson; presented to the Gallery, 2016
Bibliography
Cundall, 1922, p.121; Cundall, 1929, p.125; Gallery Website as by Thomas Girtin (Accessed 16/09/2022)
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
The Gateway of the Bishop's Palace, Wells
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
A Distant View of Southampton
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bursledon Ferry on the River Hamble, near Southampton
Private Collection
The Hamble River, near Southampton
Private Collection
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
Leeds Art Gallery
The Market Rooms, Weymouth
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Private Collection
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds Art Gallery
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Private Collection
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Private Collection
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral, from the South
Koriyama City Museum of Art
On the River Exe, Exeter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shaldon, Seen from Teignmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Sharpham House on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
Private Collection
The Estuary of the River Taw
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop's Palace
Private Collection
St Vincent's Rocks from Nightingale Valley, near Bristol
Private Collection
Bristol Cathedral, from College Green
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Bristol Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
Tate, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly a West-Country Tor
Tate, London
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
A House Reflected in the Waters of an Estuary
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
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About this Work
This view of Okehampton Castle, unlike the on-the-spot colour sketch (TG1277) and the signed version of the same composition (TG1278), which appears to date from around 1799–1800, was not included in the catalogue of Girtin’s works published by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak in 1954, and it appears to be a contemporary copy of the latter (Girtin and Loshak, 1954). The status of the work was confused by the fact that Girtin and Loshak mixed up the provenance of the autograph work and the copy, but a note in the Girtin Archive (40A) records the doubts that the authors had about the attribution, and when it came to be sold at auction in 1978 it was as a ‘contemporary copy’. We can be reasonably sure that the watercolour was copied after Girtin’s original, rather than from a reproduction, because it not only carefully reproduces each detail of the composition on the same scale but also employs a similar low-grade wrapping paper and, in all probability, a comparable palette of fugitive pigments, which have faded and discoloured in a similar way to the pigments in the autograph version. The anonymous copyist clearly not only had access to the original but also must have known something about the artist’s working methods, though this was not enough to make up for their shortcomings as a watercolourist, particularly in the areas of vegetation, which are hard in the outline and crudely coloured. For that reason, I suspect that the copy was made by an amateur artist who either owned the original Girtin watercolour or had ready access to it, though who that might have been we are unlikely to discover.
(?) 1797
Okehampton Castle
TG1277
1799 - 1800
Okehampton Castle
TG1278