This important but little-known watercolour of the view looking down to the port of Lyme Regis, on the Dorset coast, is based on an on-the-spot colour sketch that Girtin executed on his West Country tour in the autumn of 1797 (TG1250). The artist is documented as having been in Exeter in early November, and it seems that his visit there to sketch an interior view of the cathedral was preceded by a journey along the Dorset coast that took in Weymouth and Abbotsbury, as well as Lyme Regis, and this resulted in two other finished watercolours of the neighbouring area (TG1253 and TG1254) (Chancery, Income and Expenses, 1804).¹ Like Weymouth, Lyme Regis saw rapid development as a resort in the last decades of the eighteenth century, as the fashion for sea bathing gained momentum, but it also had the added attraction of a ‘very pleasing aspect … on the declivity of a hill’, something that Girtin’s viewpoint on the cliffs to the east of the town was well calculated to display (Walker, 1792–1802, vol.2, no.50, pl.100). As if to emphasise the healthy aspect of the location, the artist introduced a burst of sunlight to light up the town, whilst the Cobb, the breakwater that forms the town’s harbour and that was used by visitors as a promenade, curls out invitingly into the sea. I have always assumed that the watercolour was commissioned by one such visitor to the resort, for, though the coastal scenery no doubt appealed to the artist as a subject, it seems unlikely that he would have gone to all the expense of time and money to travel to the town, make a sizeable colour sketch of the view and then work up a large-scale watercolour without some prior encouragement. There is, however, a possibility that the work was made on a speculative basis after all, since a ‘Coast of Dorsetshire, with Town of Lyme’ was included in Girtin’s posthumous sale in 1803 and sold for the not inconsiderable sum of £5 10s (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 1 June 1803, lot 80). Given that this watercolour is likely to be the ‘Coast of Dorsetshire’ that the artist sent to the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1798, it may have failed to find a purchaser there and consequently remained in his hands Exhibitions: Royal Academy, London, 1798, no.342).

The work is known only as a black and white image, and at this distance it is difficult to know precisely why it remained unsold during the artist’s lifetime. It is certainly not the case that prospective owners were put off by the innovative panoramic format of the composition since, as a comparison with the on-the-spot sketch shows, Girtin noticeably compressed the landscape so that it actually conforms closely to the standard proportions of his studio watercolours. The view is panoramic by implication only, and it is actually patterned on an outline drawing by John Robert Cozens (1752–97), Fano on the Adriatic (see source image TG0708), which Girtin, together with his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), transformed into a watercolour for Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) at about this time (TG0708). Cozens’ view provides a striking precedent for the articulation of a receding hilly coastline as a series of strong diagonals. Armed with his own on-the-spot sketch, which records the play of light on the contrasting areas of vegetation and exposed rocks, Girtin was able to infuse his Italian model with a convincing English feel. Nor were purchasers likely to be put off by the lack of finish that characterises the other Dorset coastal view from this date, such as A Cliff-Top View (TG1239), since, as a comparison with his original sketch again shows, Girtin was careful to smooth out the spatial ambiguities seen in the colour study and introduce enough detail in areas such as the Cobb and the town of Lyme for us to have no difficulty in recognising the subject. Instead, I think the problem may have revolved around the foreground, which the artist seems to have invented in order to convert the panoramic proportions of the sketch into something more conventional. The dark hillock to the right, so close to the form in the equivalent area in the upright Dorset coast view, together with the cliff-top to the left, with its precariously perched cow, are singly unconvincing additions to the scene shown in the sketch. Obscure the bottom quarter of the composition, and what remains is a more panoramic image that, like the other two views taken above Lyme (TG1253 and TG1254), convinces as a new and vivid way of depicting an elevated landscape.

There is a possibility that the work might be identified with the ‘Coast Scene’ that was lent by George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex (1757–1839), to the exhibition organised by the Society of Painter in Water Colours in 1823 (Exhibitions: SPWC, 1823, no.18). It was described by one critic as showing an ‘extensive bird’s-eye view’ with ‘several head-lands’, which indeed matches this view more closely than any other, though a surprising dearth of details about the earl’s extensive collection of Girtin’s work means that this cannot be confirmed (European Magazine, January 1823).

(?) 1797

The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below

TG1250

1797 - 1798

A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis

TG1253

1797 - 1798

Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale

TG1254

1794 - 1797

Fano, on the Adriatic Coast

TG0708

1794 - 1797

Fano, on the Adriatic Coast

TG0708

1797 - 1798

A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset

TG1239

1797 - 1798

A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis

TG1253

1797 - 1798

Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale

TG1254