In almost every case where Reynolds produced a mezzotint after a Girtin watercolour, copies by both amateurs and professionals have proliferated, and Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge was clearly a particularly popular composition. At least three other versions have been recorded, but, because I have not seen them at first hand and they are known only from poor black and white photographs and a slight digital image, it has not been possible to ascertain their precise status (see figure 1 and figure 2). However, none appear to be any stronger than the version in Leeds Art Gallery (TG1660), and I would be surprised if their reappearance in public added another authentic Girtin to the catalogue, though it is not inconceivable that the artist himself made further replicas of the subject.
1800
Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge
TG1659
(?) 1800
Wetherby: Looking through the Bridge to the Mills
TG1643
(?) 1800
Wetherby: Looking through the Bridge to the Mills
TG1644
1800
Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge
TG1659
1800
Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge
TG1660
About this Work
This version of the view of the west front of Ripon Minster seen from the river Skell was described by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak, the cataloguers of Girtin’s watercolours, as ‘An almost exact replica of’ the work now in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (TG1659) (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.187). Perhaps they were swayed by the fact that the first recorded owner of the watercolour was the artist’s son, Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74), as although Girtin did on occasion make replicas of his own work (TG1643 and TG1644, for instance), the quality of this work is relatively poor, and, following the lead of Francis Hawcroft, I am inclined to discount the earlier attribution (Hawcroft, 1975, p.15). Thomas Calvert may have inherited some of his father’s works from his mother, Mary Ann Girtin (1781–1843), or his grandfather, Phineas Borrett (1756–1843), but he bought the majority on the art market later in his life, and in this case I suspect that he was persuaded by the signature into buying a copy of a view of Ripon Minster that was published as a mezzotint by Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835) (see print after TG1659), who acted on behalf of the artist in his final years in a role somewhere between agent and dealer. Indeed, given that Reynolds had access to the watercolour in both of his capacities – as an engraver and as a dealer – it is more than possible that he was the author of this full-scale copy as well, not least because its faded state suggests that he had sufficient knowledge of Girtin’s practice to employ a similar palette, which included fugitive pigments such as indigo.
However, having looked at the watercolour once again, after a gap of twenty years, I am now rather less inclined to question the attribution of the work to Girtin. The signature strikes me as being right, and I wonder whether the still evident weaknesses in the handling of the watercolour washes have not been exacerbated by the work’s poor, faded condition. Details that once struck me as typical of the lapses of a copyist, such as the way that the fishing rod held by the figure on the far bank has been omitted, now suggest the work of an artist bored with making a replica of his own composition. Technical analysis of the paper and the pigments might at some future date help with the problem, but in the meantime I am more than happy to reconsider the attribution and have inserted a question mark in front of Girtin’s name, which in this case comes somewhere between ‘possibly by’ and ‘probably by’.