- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on laid paper (watermark: Britannia)
- Dimensions
- 20.5 × 16 cm, 8 ⅛ × 6 ¼ in
- Inscription
‘T. Girtin’ lower right, by Thomas Girtin; ‘Barrett / Landscape Painter’ lower left, in a later hand
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Figure Study
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1517
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 219 as 'Sketch Portrait of a Man'; 'c. 1797'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2004
Provenance
Paul Oppé (1878–1957), acquired 1945; given to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960); the 'property of a Lady'; her sale, Sotheby’s, 13 November 1997, lot 49, unsold; Sotheby’s, 14 July 2004, lot 35; Rosebery’s, 16 October 2008, lot 117 as 'Portrait of a gentleman', unsold
Bibliography
Oppé, 1957–59, p.97, no.2301
Other entries in London and the Home Counties, Together with Miscellaneous Studies and Views
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Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
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Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust)
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Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey, from the East
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
An Interior View of St Albans Abbey, from the Crossing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
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Windsor Great Park: Herne’s Oak with a Herd of Deer
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Stags Fighting amongst a Herd of Deer in Windsor Great Park, with the Castle in the Distance
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A Herd of Deer in Richmond Park
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A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section One: Somerset House to Blackfriars Bridge
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Two: The Surrey Bank
Private Collection
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
Private Collection
Westminster, from the West Corner of the Adelphi Terrace
Private Collection
The Thames with St Paul's and Blackfriars Bridge
The Morgan Library & Museum
Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
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A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
Private Collection
A Panoramic Landscape, near Norwood
Private Collection
St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
National Gallery of Art, Washington
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Paul's Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Untraced Works
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A River Scene, with Boats
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
An Imaginary Coast Scene with the Horizontal Air Mill at Battersea
Private Collection
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British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A Farm with an Unidentified Windmill
Private Collection
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Private Collection, Norfolk
Trees and Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone-next-Dartford
British Museum, London
A Farmhouse in a Woodland Setting, Said to Be in Devon
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Farm Buildings, Probably in Surrey
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
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Private Collection
A Picturesque House Overlooking a River, with Distant Windmills
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
The West End of an Unidentified Church
Private Collection
An Unidentified Windmill, Probably in Lambeth
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
Unidentified Buildings, Herne Hill
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Study of a Sailor on Board a Ship; A Fishing Boat
Private Collection
The Frozen Watermill, from William Cowper's The Task
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Unidentified Subject, Probably from James Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian
Tate, London
The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Morgan Library & Museum
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
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A Study of a Lion from the Tower of London
Private Collection
An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
British Museum, London
A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
A Landscape with Figures by Railings
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Cottage and a Windmill Surrounded by Trees
Private Collection
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Private Collection
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About this Work
This portrait study of an unknown man was signed by Girtin, and sometime later ‘Barrett Landscape Painter’ was added by another hand. This presumably refers to George Barret the Younger (1767–1842) rather than his father, also called George, who died in 1784. However, even so, this appears to be a mistake, as Barret’s self-portrait from about 1795 bears no resemblance, either in terms of age or facial type, to the man depicted here (see figure 1). Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak also noted that the man shown here appears to be considerably older than Barret, and they suggested that the sketch may instead represent the artist’s father-in-law, Phineas Borrett (1756–1843), and it is surely not stretching credulity to imagine that his name might have been inscribed on the drawing and that this was misread at a later date (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.163). No likeness of Borrett is known to exist, but, since we now know that he was born in 1756, it is fair to say that this portrait study is not inconsistent with a man in his early to mid-forties, and this was certainly the opinion of Paul Oppé (1878–1957) who bequeathed the drawing to Thomas Girtin (Oppé Archive, APO/6/7/2).
Girtin married Mary Ann Borrett (1781–1843) in October 1800, but the artist must have known her father from at least a year or so earlier, when the prosperous city goldsmith commissioned a number of watercolours from him (such as TG1413 and TG1414). These depict various rural properties in Essex that the patron had bought as an investment, and if this drawing does indeed show Borrett it may have been created at this time. However, the limited number of figure studies executed by Girtin include a high percentage of family members engaged in domestic tasks and, as the artist did not study at the schools of the Royal Academy, sketching the figure tended to be a social activity separate from his professional activity as a landscape painter. In this case, it is to be remembered that Girtin gave his address in the catalogue of the Royal Academy’s exhibition in 1800 as Borrett’s home at 11 Scott’s Place, Islington, and it appears that he lived there with his wife for a short time at least. If the drawing does indeed depict the artist’s father-in-law, it is most likely that such an informal study was again produced in a domestic context. Certainly, this is a more probable scenario than anything to do with Barret the landscape painter, who is not known to have had any links or associations with Girtin.
(?) 1799
Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
TG1413
(?) 1799
Turver’s Farm, Wimbish
TG1414