- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Doric Temple at Southill
- Date
- (?) 1800
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 22.1 × 32.9 cm, 8 ¾ × 12 ⅞ in
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- Bedfordshire View; The Landscape Park
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1568
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 396 as '"In Mr. Whitbread's Park"'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
J. Palser & Sons; bought from them by Paul Oppé (1878–1957), 1913, £1; then by descent; bought by Tate as part of the Oppé Collection with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, 1996
Exhibition History
London, 1934b, no.1204; Sheffield, 1952, no.34; South London Art Gallery, 1951, no.155; London, 1958a, no.155; Ottawa, 1961, no.47; London, 1984a, no.73 as ’In Mr. Whitbread’s Park’
Bibliography
Oppé, 1957–59, p.97, no.198; Tate Online as 'In Mr Whitbread’s Park. The Doric Temple at Southill, Bedfordshire, Built Circa 1795' (Accessed 18/09/2022)
Place depicted
Other entries in Edward Lascelles and Harewood, Together with Other Houses of the Gentry
The Summer House in the Garden of Samuel Wood at Southgate
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Alnwick Castle, from Brizlee
Private Collection, Northumberland
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Estuary Scene, Probably in the West Country
Harewood House, Yorkshire
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
A Circular Temple, Said to Be in Harewood Park
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Lake Scene with Cattle, Said to Be in Harewood Park
Private Collection
A Close View of Harewood House, from the South East
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Harewood House, from the South West
Harewood House, Yorkshire
Harewood House, from the South East
Harewood House, Yorkshire
Buildings on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough
Toledo Museum of Art
Plumpton Rocks, near Knaresborough
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
A Reconstruction of the Elizabethan Wing of Moreton Corbet Castle
Private Collection
A Reconstruction of Moreton Corbet Castle, from the West
Private Collection
A Landscape with an Unidentified House
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
An Unidentified House in an Open Landscape
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
An Unidentified Small Country House or Lodge
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The North Front of Chalfont Lodge, Seen from the Lake
Private Collection
The South Front of Chalfont Lodge, Seen from across the Lawn
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The South Front of Chalfont Lodge, Seen from across the Lawn
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Chalfont House, from the North East, with Fishermen Netting the Broadwater
Private Collection, Herefordshire
Chalfont House, from the North West
Private Collection, Herefordshire
Melville Castle
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Distant View of Arundel Castle, from the South
Private Collection, Sussex
A Lake Surrounded by Trees, Known as 'The Silent Pool'
Private Collection
A Lake Scene with Two Herons, Possibly in Cassiobury Park
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Hatfield House, from the South East
British Museum, London
A House and Garden at Winster in Derbyshire
British Museum, London
A House at Winster
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
An Unidentified Georgian House, Said to Be Lobes Hill in Shropshire
Private Collection
A Distant View of a Castle, Said to Be Lowther in Westmorland
Private Collection
An Ornamental Ruin in a Park; A Tree on a Mound
British Museum, London
A Distant View of Knaresborough, from the South East
The Whitworth, University of Manchester
Guisborough Priory: The Ruined East End
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
Jedburgh from the River, with the Abbey Beyond
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
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About this Work
Although this monochrome sketch has more of the appearance of one of the imaginative scenes produced at the Sketching Society, an old inscription that apparently read ‘In Mr Whitbread’s Park’ has identified it as showing a Doric temple at Southill Park, the mansion built for the wealthy brewer Samuel Whitbread (1720–96). However, it was his son, a politician who was also called Samuel Whitbread (1764–1815), who was Girtin’s patron. He bought at least two of Girtin’s works, Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd (TG1302) and An Unidentified Valley (TG1441), and, just as importantly, supported Girtin’s agent and dealer, Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), when he faced bankruptcy. That said, there is no other evidence either that this work came from Whitbread’s collection or that Girtin himself ever visited the Bedfordshire estate; indeed, the latter point may help to explain the discrepancies between the view shown here and the precise layout of the northern part of the park at Southill. Thus, as Stephen Deuchar has noted, the small Doric temple, known as the Fishing Temple, which was completed sometime between 1796 and 1800 to a design by Henry Holland (1745–1806), appears to have been moved to a higher situation, and the free-standing arch to its right has been detached from its position adjacent to that structure and increased considerably in size, though it is unclear what the tall, thin form next to the lake is (Deuchar, 1984, p.79). In other words, what we are looking at here is as much a work of the imagination as a portrait of a place, and I think that there is a real chance that it was either made from a description or loosely worked up from a secondary source. The poor, faded state of the drawing does not help, but in the end, and despite Girtin’s connections with Whitbread, I am not fully convinced by the attribution either. Without the work’s traditional title, I suspect that I would have been quite happy to have seen the work described as an unknown Sketching Society scene by an unidentified artist, and there is something about the lumpy and undifferentiated washes employed here that does not accord with Girtin’s style, even at its most summary.
1799
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
TG1302
1798 - 1799
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
TG1441