This fine miniature, possibly the earliest image we have of the artist, appears to have been painted by Henry Edridge (1768–1821) around 1796, when Girtin was about twenty or twenty-one. The image is not dated, but the portrait seems to show a younger man than the fuller-faced individual depicted by John Opie (1761–1807) around 1800 (TG1930). Edridge presumably met the artist at the home of their mutual patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), and they remained friends throughout Girtin’s short professional life. The portrait artist owned watercolours by Girtin (such as TG1309); they went sketching together, with Edridge drawing the artist at work on one occasion (TG1923); and the older man was also one of the mourners who attended Girtin’s funeral on 17 November 1802. It seems likely that the miniature was made as an act of friendship, therefore, as neither the artist nor his family would have been in a position to have commissioned a miniature from a well-established portraitist who commanded substantial fees by the mid-1790s. According to an inscription on the back, the portrait has always been in the possession of the family, and the lock of Girtin’s hair that is mounted on the reverse of the frame suggests that it was an object of veneration for the artist’s widow, Mary Ann Girtin (1781–1843). Given this, I cannot help but wonder whether the work was not actually produced posthumously, with Edridge perhaps working from an earlier drawing for the artist’s widow. 

A mourning ring, inscribed with the artist’s dates, is now in the collection of The Whitworth, Manchester, and it too has been passed down within the family. Certainly, it is possible to imagine that it was produced at the same time as the miniature, performing essentially the same function. 

1800 - 1801

Sketch of Thomas Girtin’s Head

TG1930

1798 - 1799

The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle

TG1309

(?) 1801

Thomas Girtin Sketching

TG1923