For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.
Works James Moore and Thomas Girtin

St Clement’s Church, Sandwich, from the North

(?) 1795

Primary Image: TG0325: James Moore (1762–99) and Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), St Clement's Church, Sandwich, from the North, (?) 1795, graphite on wove paper, 22.6 × 27.9 cm, 8 ⅞ × 11 in. Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford (WA.OA984).

Photo courtesy of Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
James Moore (1762-1799) and Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
Title
  • St Clement’s Church, Sandwich, from the North
Date
(?) 1795
Medium and Support
Graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
22.6 × 27.9 cm, 8 ⅞ × 11 in
Inscription

‘T Girtin 2/’ lower right, by (?) Thomas Girtin; various colour notes by (?) James Moore;  'St Clements Sandwich, near Deal' on the back, (?) by James Moore

Object Type
Collaborations; Outline Drawing
Subject Terms
Dover and Kent; Gothic Architecture: Parish Church

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0325
Description Source(s)
Viewed in 2018

Provenance

Unknown provenance (found in the Museum in 1929) (almost certainly from James Moore (1762–99); his widow, Mary Moore (née Howett) (d.1835); bequeathed to Anne Miller (1802–90); bequeathed to Edward Mansel Miller (1829–1912); bequeathed to Helen Louisa Miller (1842–1915)

Bibliography

Brown, 1982, pp.331–32, no.722 as 'St Clements Sandwich, near Deal' by Thomas Girtin, 'Probably with James Moore'

About this Work

This sketch showing the north elevation of St Clement’s Church, Sandwich, in Kent, was made by Girtin’s first significant patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99), who probably visited the site in 1795. Moore began the sketch on the spot, using graphite to produce a faint set of outlines to which he added a number of colour notes. David Brown, in his catalogue of the British drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, argued that Girtin then took over and that the artist’s ‘more fluent working over in heavier pencil’ was added ‘when they were travelling together’ (Brown, 1982, p.332). The first part of this statement is surely true. Like the twenty or so drawings in the Ashmolean Museum where the architectural details, in particular, have been corrected and enhanced by Girtin using a darker, more fluent graphite line, Moore’s initial sketch of St Clement’s, with its fine Norman tower, has been transformed by a professional hand. What seems less credible is that Girtin worked on the drawing in the company of Moore on his 1795 trip to Sussex and Kent. None of Girtin’s drawings of subjects from either counties can definitely be said to have been made on the spot, as opposed to copied or traced from Moore’s sketches. It is more likely that he worked over sheets such as this on his patron’s return to London, and it now appears very unlikely that the young artist accompanied his patron on the 1795 trip. Uniquely amongst the sheets that both Girtin and Moore worked on, Girtin seems to have signed the work. The drawing does not seem to have ever been part of the Moore collection, however, and it is possible that the number that follows the signature, ‘2/’, is the price, and that it was sold by the artist himself.

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

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.