- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- St Winefride’s Well, Holywell
- Date
- (?) 1798
- Medium and Support
- Pen and ink and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 16 × 19.5 cm, 6 ¼ × 7 ¾ in
- Inscription
‘St. Winifreds Well / T. Girtin’ lower right, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Parish Church; North Wales
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1300
- Description Source(s)
- Auction Catalogue
Provenance
The Property of a Lady; Sotheby’s, 14 July 1994, lot 72, £3,680
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
Interior View of the Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This sketch of the early sixteenth-century vaulted chamber on the site of St Winefride’s Well was produced by Girtin during the opening stages of his tour of North Wales in the summer of 1798. Having visited and sketched the nearby ruins of the castles of Hawarden (TG1350) and Flint (see print after TG1363), Girtin stopped at Holywell to record the late Gothic building, which had been erected on the site of the martyrdom and reputed miraculous restoration to life of the seventh-century saint Winefride. Built as a place of pilgrimage, the building continued to attract tourists as one of the ‘Seven Wonders of Wales’, though it was presumably because of the monument’s status as an architectural monument that Girtin made his sketch. Thus, the artist carefully adopted a low, right-of-centre position, so as to record the details of the complex decorative vaulting that crowns the open chamber located beneath the chapel dedicated to the saint. Aside from the great medieval castles, North Wales was not noted for its Gothic architectural heritage, and, although Girtin’s close viewpoint invests the chamber with a monumental character, helped by cutting off the bulk of the chapel itself (see figure 1), perhaps not surprisingly the sketch was not realised as a studio watercolour. It does seem to have attracted the interest of a collector keen to own an example of the artist’s skill as a draughtsman, however. The inscription to the left was almost certainly added later when the work was sold, since such a neat record of the subject is quite out of keeping with the untidy scrawl more commonly seen on Girtin’s on-the-spot sketches. The formal version of the artist’s signature was no doubt inscribed at the time of the sale as well; again, it would have served no purpose on a working drawing kept by Girtin in the studio for reference.
(?) 1798
Hawarden Castle
TG1350
(?) 1798
Flint Castle
TG1363