- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- St Albans Abbey, from the East
- Date
- (?) 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 26.7 × 21 cm, 10 ½ × 8 ¼ in
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Cathedral View; Hertfordshire
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1037
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 106 as 'St. Alban's Cathedral'; '1795'
- Description Source(s)
- Gallery Website
Provenance
Charles Stokes (1785–1853); then by descent to Thomas Hughes; his neice, Alice Ellen Hughes; her sale, Sotheby’s, 28 November 1922, lot 130 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought by 'Colnaghi', £26; Henry Oppenheimer (1859–1932); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 21 July 1936, lot 145; bought by 'Colnaghi', £37 16; Spink & Son, Ltd., London, 1948; the Fine Art Society, London; David Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles (1904–99); P & D Colnaghi & Co; bought from them, 1953
Exhibition History
Spink’s, London, 1948, no.133 as by Thomas Girtin
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 East
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

St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
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

Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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

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

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

Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This view of the exterior of St Albans Abbey, shown from a point close to the east end looking towards the great Norman crossing tower, is one of a group of images of the church and its surrounds that Girtin seems to have sketched around 1796, others including The Gateway, St Albans Abbey (TG1034) and St Albans Abbey: The West Porch (TG1035). The artist presumably visited the site to take the sort of detailed study required to produce the major watercolour view of the interior of the church that was shown at the Royal Academy in 1797 and is dated 1796 (TG1040). It is possible that this drawing was produced with a similar-scale composition in mind but this time showing an exterior view. Certainly there is enough information included in the sheet for Girtin to have produced a detailed depiction of the abbey that might have resembled one of the impressive views of Gothic buildings that he painted for his early patron James Moore (1762–99) around 1794–95. Indeed, there is something about the insecure perspective displayed here, which represents the not-so-high choir extending at an excessive length to an over-dominant tower, that recalls Girtin’s view Louth Church (TG1029), of around 1795–96, and an awareness of such shortcomings might explain why the artist did not realise the composition as anything more substantial.
The drawing has been attributed in the past to Girtin’s contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), who also seems to have visited St Albans at roughly this date. The attribution to Girtin feels secure, however, even though the drawing’s weaknesses cannot help but make me wonder whether, rather than being an on-the-spot drawing, this was not another case of the artist copying a sketch from a secondary source. In other words, is the fact that Girtin came to St Albans to sketch around 1796 colouring our judgement about a drawing that, in comparison with views such as St Albans Abbey: The West Porch, seems less assured? Searching through the views of St Albans made by the significant number of artists who visited this location, which was close enough to London to be reached on a day trip, has not yet turned up any candidates for Girtin’s source, however. Moreover, I have not entirely ruled out the possibility that the drawing, although surely by Girtin, might have actually been worked over an on-the-spot sketch made by Moore on one of his numerous antiquarian tours, as in the case of a number of views of churches in Sussex, such as The West Tower, All Saints’ Church, Hastings (TG0227). The manner in which a set of faint lines seem to have been enhanced by sharper, more assured touches, combined with the weak perspective, which leaves whole areas unresolved, suggests that this might be a possibility, though working from a photograph makes this difficult to confirm.
The drawing’s provenance has also been the subject of some confusion (Exhibitions: Birmingham, 1939, no.194a), but this seems to have been sorted out by Paul Oppé (1878–1957), who bought the work for the National Gallery of Canada in 1953. The details given here follow those that Oppé passed on to Thomas Girtin (1874–1960), which are noted in the Girtin Archive (29).
(?) 1796
The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
TG1034
(?) 1796
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
TG1035
1796
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
TG1040
1795 - 1796
Louth Church
TG1029
1795
The West Tower, All Saints’ Church, Hastings
TG0227