- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
- Date
- (?) 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on laid paper (watermark: Fleur-de-Lys, cut at the top)
- Dimensions
- 36.4 × 26.1 cm, 14 ⅜ × 10 ¼ in
- Inscription
‘T. Girtin’ lower right, by Thomas Girtin; 'West Entrance of St. Albans - Herts -' on the back, lower right
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Cathedral View; Hertfordshire
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
(TG1036)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1035
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 212i as 'St. Alban's Cathedral'; '1797'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Charles Sackville Bale (1791–1880); his posthumous sale, Christie’s, 16 May 1881, lot 390 as 'west entrance of St Alban’s', one of four; bought by Palser, £2 5s; J. Palser & Sons; Sir Henry Doulton (1820–97); Edward Cohen (1817–86); then by bequest to his niece, Isabella Oswald (1838–1905); her posthumous sale, Robins & Hine, 30 March 1905, lot unknown; bought by Thomas Girtin (1874–1960), £1; given to Tom Girtin (1913–94), c.1938; bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975
Exhibition History
New Haven, 1986a, no.58
Bibliography
YCBA Online as 'St. Alban's Cathedral, Hertfordshire' (Accessed 15/09/2022)
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
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
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
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 drawing by Girtin of the central porch of the west front of St Albans Abbey was probably sketched during the artist’s visit to the city north of London around 1796, when he was collecting material for a major watercolour view of the interior of the church, The Interior of St Albans Abbey (TG1040). The complex watercolour, which was shown at the 1797 exhibition of the Royal Academy, would have required a detailed pencil study for its production, and the artist seems to have taken the opportunity to make at least three other sketches of the abbey and its surrounds (the others being TG1034 and TG1037). The west porch, shown in this sketch, was built in the early thirteenth century, but by the time of Girtin’s visit it was dilapidated and it was subsequently swept away when the west front was rebuilt in the 1880s. Girtin’s drawing, together with the small watercolour that was subsequently painted from it (TG1036), has therefore become a valuable historical record of a building that was altered in many areas almost beyond recognition during the Victorian period. Overlaying images of the sketch of the porch and the later watercolour version shows how closely Girtin followed his on-the-spot sketch, but it is questionable whether he made the drawing with a finished watercolour in mind. It seems to have been produced as part of a campaign to record the most attractive aspects of the building, and it appears that it was only subsequently that the artist realised the potential of the drawing as the subject of a sketch-like view, very different from the formal composition of the large-scale The Interior of St Albans Abbey.
Girtin was one of many London-based artists who took advantage of the proximity of St Albans to the capital to add views of the Abbey to their repertoire of grand Gothic buildings - St Albans only acquired its cathedral status much later. Girtin’s great contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) visited in 1793 when he also sketched the porch (Tate, Turner Bequest XXI R).
Image Overlay
1796
The Interior of St Albans Abbey
TG1040
(?) 1796
The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
TG1034
(?) 1796
St Albans Abbey, from the East
TG1037
1798 - 1799
St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
TG1036