- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper, on an original mount
- Dimensions
- 23.7 × 49.5 cm, 9 ⁵⁄₁₆ × 19 ½ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- London and Environs; Panoramic Format
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1391
- Description Source(s)
- Gallery Website
Provenance
Maas Gallery, London, 1962; bought from them by Paul Mellon (1907–99); presented to the Gallery, 1986
Exhibition History
Richmond, Virginia, 1963, no.169; New Haven, 1986a, but not in the catalogue
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
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
Hawes Fine Art
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, University of Manchester
A House Seen across a Lake, 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
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 badly faded watercolour, showing a panoramic view from St James’s Park looking east towards Westminster Abbey, is dominated by a large body of water in the foreground. The poor condition of the work probably means that some of the more subtle reflections have been lost, but the featureless expanse of water is nonetheless disturbing, because, to put it bluntly, its disproportionate presence indicates that Girtin’s view is not so much a topographical record as a fanciful confection that bears only a passing resemblance to St James’s Park in the 1790s. The key to understanding the extent of Girtin’s deception is provided by the only other view that I have been able to find of Westminster Abbey looking from the west and a viewpoint close to what is now Buckingham Palace, an oil painting by John Inigo Richards (1731–1810) (see figure 1). This shows the same parallel view of the west front of the abbey church, with the tower of St Margaret’s, Westminster to the left, and it also has a body of water in the foreground. However, Rosamond’s Pond, as it was known, was drained in 1770, and no trace of it remained during Girtin’s time, which explains why no similar view of the iconic abbey has been traced. Trying to understand exactly what Girtin was up to, I came up with two possibilities. Firstly, despite the fact that he lived only a few minutes’ walk away, the artist may actually have worked up his watercolour from an old drawing that included Rosamond’s Pond, which provided the sort of broad foreground that he favoured for his more panoramic views. This, after all, is essentially what he did time and again in his work for patrons such as James Moore (1762–99) and Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), though in this case he would have had to adapt his source wholesale to exclude the more formal tree-lined alleys that bordered the water. Secondly, and this is the option I favour, perhaps Girtin simply invented the body of water in order to direct the eye into the middle ground and anchor what amounts to an experiment in how the city might be depicted in a panoramic format. However, even making allowances for the work’s poor condition, it is an exercise that has failed, and, unlike his later panorama of London – the seven scenes that make up the 360-degree view known as the Eidometropolis, which adopts an elevated viewpoint – the result is frankly disappointing, resembling the older prospect tradition of expansive city views, though I would stop short of questioning the attribution to Girtin.