This view of the east front of the gatehouse of Thornton Abbey in Lincolnshire was engraved in 1798 by Bartholomew Howlett (1767–1827) for his publication A Selection of Views in the County of Lincoln (see the print after, above) (Howlett, 1805). Girtin visited Lincolnshire in 1794 in the company of his earliest patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99), and two of the views of Lincoln that he made for his patron after his own on-the-spot sketches were included by Howlett in Views in the County of Lincoln (TG1008 and TG1010). Many of the remaining eight views that were engraved after Girtin’s Lincolnshire scenes were made from sketches taken by other artists, including the amateur Thomas Espin (1767–1822), who is credited on the print as providing Girtin with the source for this image. It was a common practice amongst publishers of topographical collections targeted at the antiquarian market to petition local amateur artists for material and then to employ a professional artist to render it in a suitable form for engraving. Espin, who lived in nearby Louth, was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and, as a competent amateur artist, was trusted to produce a reasonably accurate representation of the building from which Girtin fashioned his own small watercolour. It was presumably Girtin who improvised the picturesque landscape foreground and the figure of an artist studying the view. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to acquire an image of the watercolour, but it no doubt resembles the similarly sized view of the west front of the gatehouse to Thornton Abbey (TG1032), which was also engraved by Howlett after a drawing by Girtin. Some of Girtin’s Lincoln views, such as Louth Church (TG1029), were produced for local patrons and lent to the publisher for engraving, but the smaller views of Thornton were presumably commissioned by Howlett for reproduction, and not surprisingly they do not rate amongst the artist’s most exciting performances.

Howlett’s Views in the County of Lincoln is typical of the numerous topographical publications of the period that assembled, often over a long period (in this case 1797–1805), a collection of engravings of modest size and decent competency with a brief text for each. The text was published at the end of the run, allowing the subscribers, who had paid three shillings for each of its twenty-five numbers, to have the material bound together in book form. Girtin’s contributions to the publication, like those of his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) and the ten or so other professional artists who were involved, were a mix of original compositions, works produced from the sketches of amateurs, small-scale drawings commissioned by the publisher and larger compositions lent by patrons of the arts. The spectacular fourteenth-century brick gatehouse of Thornton Abbey, the only important part of the foundation left after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, is typical of the subjects covered in the publication. Of some architectural importance, it still required the assistance of a professional artist to add enough picturesque incident to attract interest beyond the narrow circle of antiquarians who alone might have been thrilled by what the text refers to as the ‘fine piece of decayed workmanship’ in the central window.

1794

Lincoln Cathedral, from the West

TG1008

1794 - 1795

Lincoln, from the Brayford Pool

TG1010

1796 - 1797

The West Front of the Gatehouse of Thornton Abbey

TG1032

1796 - 1797

Louth Church

TG1029