This pencil sketch recently appeared on the art market (Parker Fine Art Auctions, 15 February 2024, lot 583) as the ‘River Nish’ by an artist in the ‘circle of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)’.¹ However, the style of the pencil work, the drawing’s dimensions, and the subject – ‘Nish’ presumably being a misreading for the river Nidd – all point to Girtin as the author and to the Yorkshire Sketchbook as the origin of the sheet. So far, more than twenty sketches executed on paper with the same vertical dimensions have been identified as coming from this source, including seven that Girtin executed on the river Nidd in and around Knaresborough in Yorkshire in the summer of either 1799 or 1800 (including TG1512 and TG1589). In this case, as David Hill has noted (email dated 8 March 2024), the ‘lack of any landmarks and the braided and meandering’ form of the river means that we ‘would have to be some way below Knaresborough’. Girtin visited and sketched Wetherby downriver at the same date (TG1641) and it may therefore be that the view was taken on one of the meanders between the two towns.

The evidence that drawings such as this and the companion piece with which it was sold (TG1498) come from a sketchbook is quite compelling. Two other drawings on the same wove paper of similar dimensions have matching holes at the edge, which indicate that they had both been bound into a book (TG1508a and TG1525). The latter sketch (Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea) is missing a small section to the right, which, as a later copy indicates (TG1601), must have originally strayed onto the opposite page. It seems that on just this one occasion Girtin did execute his sketches in a book, though, as the paper historian Peter Bower has argued, it is unlikely that this was made commercially, and it may be that the artist himself assembled sheets of paper into a convenient gathering which would account for slight variations in their size (Bower, 2002, p.141). Whatever the case, this sheet is likely to have featured amongst the ‘180 Sketches’ or ‘4 little Books partly of sketches and partly blank paper’ that John Girtin (1773–1821) records taking possession of following the artist’s death in November 1802 and which he subsequently sold on the art market (Chancery, Income and Expenses, 1804).

1799 - 1800

Bilton Banks, on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough

TG1512

1799 - 1800

Buildings on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough

TG1589

1799 - 1800

Wetherby Bridge and Mills, Looking across the Weir

TG1641

1799 - 1800

TG1498

1799 - 1800

Cottages at Hawes, from Gayle Beck

TG1508a

1799 - 1800

Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea

TG1525

(?) 1801

Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea

TG1601