This view, looking south-west to the Euganean Hills from the northern Italian city of Padua, is mounted in an album of watercolours that was bought by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at the posthumous sale of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 28 June 1833, lot 79). The twenty-six drawings were the outcome of a unique collaboration between Girtin and Turner working together at Monro’s London home at the Adelphi. Here the artists were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’ and other artists, amateur and professional, either from Monro’s collection or lent for the purpose. As the two young artists later recalled, Girtin generally ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’, which may account for the generally monochrome appearance of the works, and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).¹

The view is based on a simple outline drawing by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) that is inscribed ‘The Euganian Hills, from the walls of Padua June 18 –’ and mounted in an album now at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (see the source image above). This was almost certainly traced by Cozens himself from an on-the-spot sketch he made on a second visit to Italy, in 1782 (Bell and Girtin, 1935, no.213), when the artist accompanied his patron William Beckford (1760–1844) through northern Italy to Naples. The sketch is one of three Padua subjects (the others being TG0705 and TG0705a) in the first of seven sketchbooks that survive from the trip (The Whitworth, Manchester (D.1975.4.19)), and it was presumably traced by Cozens because the books were retained by Beckford. Monro’s posthumous sale, in 1833, contained only twenty or so sketches by Cozens, so the patron must have borrowed the majority of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings’ copied by Girtin and Turner. In this case, the source of the watercolour was presumably purchased at the sale of ‘Mr COZENS’ in July 1794 by Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827).² As Kim Sloan has noted, Beaumont mounted ‘215 “tracings” or drawings on oiled paper’ in an album that he presumably lent to Monro, and it was from this collection that the two young artists produced more than fifty watercolours (Sloan and Joyner, 1993, pp.89–91). These include three scenes in Padua (the others being TG0705 and TG0705a), where Beckford stopped for two days prior to visiting the Euganean Hills, which are seen in this view beyond what appears to be a ruined well-house.

The album containing this drawing was sold in 1833 as the work of Turner, but the cataloguer of the Turner Bequest, Alexander Finberg, thought that Girtin alone was responsible for the watercolours, whilst more recently Andrew Wilton has established their joint authorship (Finberg, 1909, vol.2, p.1232; Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). Identifying the division of labour within Monro School drawings is considerably helped, as here, when the colour washes leave some of the pencil work showing through, and, though this drawing is far from outstanding in quality, there is no doubt that it is by Girtin. However, overlaying images of the Monro School watercolour and the Cozens sketch suggests that Girtin did little more than trace the general outlines of the simple composition; it was left to Turner to obscure the essentially mechanical task of replication, though he chose not to fill in the forms of the clouds, which Girtin had carefully copied from the source.

Image Overlay

1794 - 1797

Part of Padua, Seen from the Walls

TG0705

1800 - 1820

The Abbey of Santa Giustina at Padua

TG0705a

1794 - 1797

Part of Padua, Seen from the Walls

TG0705

1800 - 1820

The Abbey of Santa Giustina at Padua

TG0705a