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Works Thomas Girtin

St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent

1795 - 1800

Print after: Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), after Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), mezzotint, St Mary's, Old Malton, published belatedly in Liber Naturae; or, A Collection of Prints from the Drawings of Thomas Girtin, pl.1, London, 1883, 14.3 × 18.8 cm, 5 ⅝ × 7 ⅜ in. British Museum, London (1893,0612.82.2).

Photo courtesy of The Trustees of the British Museum (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
Title
  • St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent
Date
1795 - 1800
Part of
Object Type
Drawing for a Print
Subject Terms
Gothic Architecture: Parish Church; River Scenery; Yorkshire View

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG1654
Description Source(s)
The original known only from the print

About this Work

This view of the tower of St Mary’s, Old Malton, overlooking the river Derwent, is known only from a later mezzotint (see print after TG1654). This was engraved by Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835) around 1824, but it was not actually published until 1883, when it formed part of a group of fifteen prints after Girtin’s works titled Liber Naturae; or, A Collection of Prints from the Drawings of Thomas Girtin (Neill & Son, 1883). Reynolds was in a particularly good position to make prints from Girtin’s works since he acted as the artist’s dealer, or perhaps more accurately agent, from sometime around 1800, and his posthumous sale contained a large number of Girtin’s sketches. Thus, although there is some evidence that Reynolds copied Girtin’s watercolours in a way that added to the stock of forgeries of his work, it is likely that in this case the mezzotint records a genuine, albeit lost composition by Girtin, though it may have been in the form of a slight sketch rather than a carefully worked-up watercolour.

The thought that the work on which this print is based might not have been by Girtin was prompted by the fact that Malton does not seem to have been an obvious stopping point on any of the artist’s routes within the county of Yorkshire, whether in 1796 (on his first independent tour to the northern counties) or on later trips to the North Yorkshire coast and to the West Riding and Wensleydale. Without the stylistic evidence of the lost watercolour, there is no way of saying when the source for Reynolds’ print was made, therefore, and it may even be the case that Girtin painted it after the work of another artist and that it therefore predates 1796.

1795 - 1800

St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent

TG1654

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

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