- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Southampton Harbour
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 19.1 × 29.9 cm, 7 ½ × 11 ¾ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Coasts and Shipping; Hampshire View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1236
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin and Loshak, 1954
Provenance
Thomas Calvert Girtin (1801–74); then by descent to George Wyndham Hog Girtin (1835–1911) (lent to London, 1875); by a settlement to his sister, Mary Hog Barnard (née Girtin) (1828–99); her sale, Christie’s, 31 May 1886, lot 58; bought by 'Isaac', £5 15s 6d
Exhibition History
London, 1875, no.74 as 'View of Southampton', shown with an untraced view of 'Scarborough', 8 ¼ × 12 ½ in (21 × 31.8 cm)
Bibliography
Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.210
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
The Gateway of the Bishop's Palace, Wells
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
A Distant View of Southampton
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bursledon Ferry on the River Hamble, near Southampton
Private Collection
The Hamble River, near Southampton
Private Collection
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
Leeds Art Gallery
The Market Rooms, Weymouth
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Private Collection
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds Art Gallery
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Private Collection
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Private Collection
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral, from the South
Koriyama City Museum of Art
On the River Exe, Exeter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shaldon, Seen from Teignmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Sharpham House on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
Private Collection
The Estuary of the River Taw
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop's Palace
Private Collection
St Vincent's Rocks from Nightingale Valley, near Bristol
Private Collection
Bristol Cathedral, from College Green
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Bristol Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
Tate, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly a West-Country Tor
Tate, London
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
A House Reflected in the Waters of an Estuary
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Footnotes
- 1 Identified by Kingsley Miller in September 2016 and noted in the catalogue entry for the work in British Museum, Collection.
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
About this Work
This work formed part of the collection of the Girtin family for almost a century, and it appeared in the first important exhibition of the artist’s works in 1875 (London, 1875, no.74a). It was lost sight of soon after, and was listed by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak amongst the untraced drawings in their catalogue of Girtin’s watercolours; no image of it is now known (Girtin and Loshak, 1954). Another watercolour, Southampton Harbour (see figure 1), is the work of Girtin’s early patron John Henderson (1764–1843). However, though he is known to have copied a number of his protégé’s compositions (see TG0919 figure 1), there is no evidence to back up the assumption that Henderson’s Southampton Harbour records the appearance of the lost Girtin view. Indeed, given that the scene includes to the left the folly castle erected by the Marquess of Lansdowne (1736–1805) in 1805 (demolished in 1818) the watercolour must postdate Girtin’s death.1 The untraced work, if it were to be found, and if it is indeed by Girtin, would join a growing list of views of Southampton and its surrounds that increasingly suggest that the town was a significant stop on the artist’s West Country tour of 1797 (such as TG1234).
Figure 1.
John Henderson (1764–1843), Southampton Harbour, graphite and watercolour on paper, 18.8 × 43 cm, 7 ⅜ × 16 ⅞ in. British Museum, London (1948,1009.15).
Digital image courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
1797 - 1798
A Distant View of Southampton
TG1234