- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Snowdon
- Date
- 1800 - 1805
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour and scratching out on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 23.7 × 48.1 cm, 9 ⁵⁄₁₆ × 19 in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Hills and Mountains; North Wales
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1326
- Description Source(s)
- Museum Website
Provenance
Sir John Charles Robinson (1824–1913); bought from him by Thos. Agnew & Sons, 3 July 1901 (stock no.3675); sold to A. Hugh Thomson, 1 March 1902 for £30; ... Ellen Twistleton Bullard (1865–1959); bequeathed to the Museum, 1959
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1902, no.35 as ’Snowdon from the Vale of Llanberis’; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1960; Minneapolis, 1961, no.32
Bibliography
Museum Website as 'Attributed to Thomas Girtin'
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This badly faded watercolour, which is said to show Snowdon in North Wales, has been attributed to Girtin, though it was not included in Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak’s catalogue of the artist’s watercolours (Girtin and Loshak, 1954). This may have been because they were not aware of a work that was then in a private collection in America, but the chances are that it was seen by Thomas Girtin earlier in the century and that it was excluded from the catalogue, and no doubt rightly so, on the grounds of its poor quality. I know the work only from an online image, but there is nothing to lead me to think that it has anything to do with Girtin or his 1798 trip to North Wales. The watercolour is said to be mounted on ‘a sheet made of two flower proofs by Havell, pasted together’, and, though I am not sure what that means, a young William Havell (1782–1857) might indeed be a candidate for the authorship, not least because he was clearly heavily influenced by Girtin early in his career (Smith, 2002b, p.247).
Another, larger view of Snowdon, looking from Capel Curig, has also been attributed to Girtin in the past (see figure 1). The work is again faded, and this and its poor quality likewise make an attribution to Girtin untenable. One possibility is that this is an early work by John Varley (1778–1842), whose variation on Girtin’s Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris (see TG1334 figure 2) shares a number of features with this watercolour.
The attribution of the current work and the view from Capel Curig to Girtin in the past has had as much to do with the fact that one of his most important views of North Wales has not yet been traced as it has had with any resemblance that they might have with the artist’s mountain views. A Mountain View, near Beddgelert (TG1322) is undoubtedly one of the two works that Girtin showed at the Royal Academy in 1799 with the title ‘Beth Kellert, North Wales’, but no sign has ever been found of the other watercolour exhibited with the same title (Exhibitions: Royal Academy, London, 1799, nos.347 and 381). Given that the original title of TG1322, ‘Bethkellert’, is no more than an approximate one, it is perhaps not surprising that the temptation to attribute similar mountain scenes to Girtin has proved too strong to resist.
1798 - 1799
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
TG1322
1798 - 1799
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
TG1322