- 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
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St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
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St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Albans Abbey, from the North West
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An Interior View of St Albans Abbey, from the Crossing
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Windsor Great Park: Herne’s Oak with a Herd of Deer
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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 Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
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The Thames with St Paul's and Blackfriars Bridge
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
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Private Collection
A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
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Private Collection
Westminster Abbey, Seen from Green Park and the Queen's Basin
National Gallery of Art, Washington
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
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St Paul's Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Untraced Works
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Private Collection
St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
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Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
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
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Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Farm Buildings, Probably in Surrey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
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Private Collection
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Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington
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Private Collection
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Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
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Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston
Unidentified Buildings, Herne Hill
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
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The Frozen Watermill, from William Cowper's The Task
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
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The Morgan Library & Museum, New York
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British Museum, London
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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
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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