- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
- Date
- (?) 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and brush and ink on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 50.1 × 60.3 cm, 19 ¾ × 23 ¾ in
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch; Visible Fold in the Paper
- Subject Terms
- North Wales; Waterfall Scenery
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
(TG1320)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1319
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 322i as 'Cayne Waterfall, Merioneth ... Unfinished'; '1799'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001, 2002 and 2018
Provenance
Chambers Hall (1786–1855); presented to the Museum, 1855
Exhibition History
Manchester, 1975, no.59; London, 1985, no.77; Trento, 1993, no.10; London, 2002, no.120 as ’Cayne Waterfall, near Dolgellau, North Wales’
Bibliography
Ruskin, 1898, pp.184–85; Binyon, 1898–1907, no.55; Binyon, 1900, p.23; Sparrow, 1902, p.88; Finberg, 1905, pp.60–61; Binyon, 1931, p.107; Johnson, 1932, p.148; Binyon, 1933, p.104; Binyon, 1944, p.93; Hardie, 1934, p.6; Mayne, 1949, p.94; Hardie, 1966–68, vol.2, p.12; Nygren, 1982, p.15; Brett, 1984, p.111; Finch, 1991, p.39; Bower, 2002, p.138
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
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 large on-the-spot colour sketch showing the Cain Falls, near Dolgellau, was made on Girtin’s tour of North Wales in the summer of 1798, and it formed the basis for an impressive, though sadly faded, watercolour (TG1320). The work’s status as Girtin’s largest on-the-spot colour study can be established with some certainty by the evident speed with which the artist added just a few tints to a swift pencil sketch, losing control over some of the very liquid washes and leaving other areas untouched. Unusually for the artist, Girtin rapidly worked over the simple pencil lines with a brush and ink to establish no more than the basic elements of the scene, leaving for the studio the creation of a credible sense of space and a convincing tree-lined setting for the falls.
Pistyll Cain, as the waterfall is properly known, was a favourite stopping point on the road between Dolgellau and Ffestiniog for tourists in search of one of the picturesque waterfalls for which the region was famed. Another visitor to the site in 1798, the Revd John Evans (1768–c.1812), was enraptured by the approach through a ‘fairy region’ of ‘sylvan shades’, from where the falls could be heard ‘in an angry roar … like distant thunder’. Arriving at the bottom via a ‘truly alpine bridge’, he finally saw the water descend through ‘the rocky fissures’ and a ‘thick wooded glen, shaded by ancient oak’. The effect, Evans concluded, was an ‘enchanting style of romantic beauty’ (Evans, 1804, pp.105–6). Girtin almost certainly did not read such descriptions, but, in making what appears to have been quite a detour to depict the second, less vertiginous, part of the Cain Falls on such a large scale, he must have had either a commission for a finished watercolour of the view or a reasonable expectation that a well-known picturesque location would attract orders. We have no idea of the identity of the first owner of the watercolour that was produced from the sketch, but its scale and ambition suggest that if the commission was secured ahead of the tour, this helped to determine the artist’s route, as was presumably the case with the similar view of the Ogwen Falls (TG1330) produced for Edward Lascelles (1764–1814).
On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as an off-white laid drawing cartridge paper, produced by an unknown Dutch manufacturer and worked on Girtin’s favoured wireside, where the surface is impressed with the lines of the mould used in its manufacture (Smith, 2002b, p.156; Bower, Report). The vertical fold evident in the centre of the sheet is an integral part of the handmade paper, resulting from the way in which it was dried over a rope (Bower, 2002, p.138). In a sketch such as this, the feature does not register perhaps as much as in a finished studio watercolour, where, nonetheless, the artist was equally content to accept the disturbance to the work’s overall effect (such as in TG1416).
Girtin’s slightly older contemporary James Ward (1769–1859) made a full-scale copy after this on-the-spot sketch (see figure 1) rather than the finished studio work, though it is not known how he got access to the study. Copying an artist’s sketch, thereby reproducing details of their handling, was not a common practice at this date, and watercolourists such as John Varley (1778–1842) typically studied finished works (see TG1334 figure 2 and TG1740 figure 1). It may be that, unlike younger contemporaries such as John and his brother Cornelius Varley (1781–1873) as well as John Sell Cotman (1782–1842), Ward had no opportunity to sketch in Girtin’s company, and he perhaps had recourse to making such a copy where others absorbed their lessons through observing him at work or actually sketching in his presence.
1798 - 1799
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
TG1320
1798 - 1799
The Ogwen Falls
TG1330
(?) 1799
A Mill in Essex
TG1416