- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 18.1 × 23.8 cm, 7 ⅛ × 9 ⅜ in
- Inscription
‘7’ top right
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- City Life and Labour; London and Environs; The River Thames
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1387
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 81 as 'View at Wapping'; 'c. 1792-4'
- Description Source(s)
- Sale Catalogue
Provenance
J. Palser & Sons, 1913–14; Sir Bruce Stirling Ingram (1877–1963); his posthumous sale, Sotheby's, 20 January 1965, lot 466 as 'The Thames at Wapping'; bought by 'Schwab', £2; ... Thos. Agnew & Sons, 1999
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1999, no.33
Place depicted
Other entries in London and the Home Counties, Together with Miscellaneous Studies and Views
Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
Great Bookham Church, from the East
Private Collection, Norfolk
Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust)
The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
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 North West
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
Private Collection, Norfolk
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
Private Collection
A Herd of Deer in Richmond Park
Private Collection
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, New York
Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
Private Collection
A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
Private Collection
A Panoramic Landscape, near Norwood
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
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
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Turver’s Farm, Radwinter
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
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, The University of Manchester
Tintern Village, Seen across the Forge Pond, Formerly Known as ‘The Mill-Pond’
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
Effingham Churchyard, Formerly Known as 'A Country Churchyard'
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
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, New York
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Study of a Woman Reading; A Slight Study of a Seated Woman
Private Collection
Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
Private Collection
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
Self-Portrait of the Artist at Work
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
St Paul’s Cathedral, from the Thames
Private Collection
The Head of a Youth, Here Identified as Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This pencil sketch, which for a period was known as ‘View at Wapping’, actually shows a scene further downriver looking towards Greenwich. Amongst the shipping on the river can be seen the church of St Alfege, with its distinctive steeple designed by Sir Nicholas Hawksmoor (c.1662–1736), and beyond that is Greenwich Hill in the distance. The Thames and its riverside buildings and shipping were a source of interest for the artist throughout his career, but this quick sketch was the result of a rare if not unique trip downriver to where larger, ocean-going vessels might be studied at anchor. The drawing is not dated and it is impossible to pin it down to a precise year, though Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak’s suggested range of approximately 1792–94 is almost certainly too early (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.144). The drawing does not display the sophisticated touch of the architectural studies of 1794, such as the view of the west front of Peterborough Cathedral (TG1014), but that does not mean that it is earlier in date, just that Girtin employed a more economical line to record the key elements of the scene. In fact, although Girtin only rarely depicted shipping scenes and was certainly no marine painter, unlike his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), there is a group of pencil drawings of similar scenes that provides a relevant context for this sketch. Girtin’s West Country trip in the autumn of 1797 took in Bristol, and, in preparation for the production of watercolours of the harbour (TG1728), he made a series of comparable pencil sketches (such as TG1727). Drawings such as Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour (TG1286) and A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol (TG1288) both employ the same economical strokes of graphite to fix the positions of the buildings and vessels, with a sparing use of a richer tone to add emphasis, and this London view likewise contains enough information from which to create a finished studio watercolour, though none is known to have been produced. A date of around 1797–98 for this drawing would therefore seem appropriate.
(?) 1794
The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
TG1014
1800
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
TG1728
1800
Bristol Harbour, with St Mary Redcliffe in the Distance
TG1727
(?) 1797
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
TG1286
(?) 1797
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
TG1288