- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone-next-Dartford
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 26 × 35.8 cm, 10 ¼ × 14 ⅛ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Dover and Kent; Gothic Architecture: Parish Church
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1426
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 335 as 'Stone Church, Kent'; '1799–1800'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2018
Provenance
John Jackson (d.1828); his sale, Christie's, 26 March 1807, lot 75; unsold, with a reserve of £12 12s; ... Chambers Hall (1786–1855); presented to the Museum, 1855
Bibliography
Binyon, 1898–1907, no.9; Mayne, 1949, pl.17 as 'Stone Church, near Gravesend'
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 fine, little-known watercolour depicts the church of St Mary the Virgin at Stone-next-Dartford. Known for centuries as the Lantern of Kent, because of its position on the top of a hill overlooking the river Thames, the church was seen as a sign of safe haven by sailors returning home. Stone would have been easily accessible to Girtin, either as a day trip from London or on the way to or from the Kent countryside, but it may still be that he based his view of the church and the surrounding landscape on a sketch by another artist. Girtin’s two views of nearby Dartford (TG0843 and TG0844), for instance, were copied from a drawing by the amateur artist John Henderson (1764–1843), and the antiquarian James Moore (1762–99), whose sketches provided Girtin with the models for so many of his earliest architectural views, made an extensive survey of the churches of the counties of Kent and Surrey. Moreover, the origin of the work in a sketch by an amateur artist might account for the way that the perspective of the church has gone awry, particularly in the east end. But, that said, the balance between the architectural subject and the landscape setting is so heavily in favour of the latter as to suggest that Girtin studied the view in person, and the focus of the artist’s interest is actually on the way that the elevated setting gives way to the distant valley of the Thames. The sudden shift from a boldly abstract foreground to the flat patterned valley is reminiscent of a number of the coastal views that Girtin sketched on his trip to the West Country in 1797, including the rather less successful A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset (TG1239), and I suspect that we are looking at a comparable date for this work too. The similarities extend beyond the experimental composition to include a very similar palette that in both cases has been unaffected by fading; aside from an unsightly stain, the view of Stone church is in excellent condition. Girtin’s choice of pigments in this work did not include the fugitive indigo and gamboge (for the blues and yellows, respectively) that were to blight so many of later watercolours, and the view’s fresh state helps to confirm its status as an original composition from around 1797–98.
1795 - 1796
Dartford High Street
TG0843
1795 - 1796
Dartford High Street
TG0844
1797 - 1798
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
TG1239