- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Great Hall, Conwy Castle
- Date
- (?) 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 36.8 × 28.9 cm, 14 ½ × 11 ⅜ in
- Object Type
- On-the-spot Colour Sketch
- Subject Terms
- Castle Ruins; North Wales
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
The Great Hall, Conwy Castle
(TG1306)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1305
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 320i as 'Conway Castle ... Unfinished'; '1799'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001, 2002 and 2018
Provenance
Chambers Hall (1786–1855); presented to the Museum, 1855
Exhibition History
London, 1934a, no.352; London, 1958d, section 62; London, 1972, no.321; Manchester, 1975, no.56; London, 1985, no.78; Cleveland, 1991, no.38; London, 2002, no.60 (image reversed); Stainton, 2005, pp6–7
Bibliography
Binyon, 1898–1907, no.37; Binyon, 1900, pl.9; Davies, 1924, pl.66 as 'Ruins of Conway Castle'; Kitson, 1937, p.21; Mayne, 1949, p.94; Williams, 1952, p.106; Bower, 2002, p.138; Carter, Lindfield and Townshend, 2017, pp.233–34
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
About this Work
This fine on-the-spot colour sketch of the interior of the Great Hall of Conwy Castle was executed on Girtin’s visit to North Wales in the summer of 1798, and it formed the basis for a larger studio watercolour (TG1306). Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak thought that it was an ‘Unfinished’ studio work, however, and dated it to 1799, but the cumulative evidence clearly points to it being coloured in the Great Hall itself (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.177). The way that Girtin, using a limited range of colours, has lost control over the watery washes in the foreground, in particular, indicates a work done in haste, as he tried to capture a light effect that left some parts of the ruins in shadow. More than anything, it is the way that the artist has concentrated his attention on selected areas that suggests a sketch made on the spot. The rubble and vegetation that fill the interior, as well as the nearest arch, are either barely hinted at or rendered as an inchoate mass of colour, and it is difficult to see how Girtin and Loshak thought that the former area, in particular, could subsequently be worked up into the sort of coherent spatial effect seen in the final watercolour. An unfinished studio work would also have areas left clear for the figures that invariably populate the foreground of the artist’s architectural views. The crucial point that distinguishes the sketch coloured on the spot from the studio watercolour, at whatever stage of its production, is that it does not have to create a credible space, just record how a specific light effect plays on different surfaces, and the evident speed of this work’s production suggests that this is indeed what we are looking at here.
All of this begs the question of whether Girtin went to the extra trouble of producing a sizeable colour sketch because he had already secured a commission for a subject prior to travelling to Wales. This would certainly be the logical conclusion in this case, but the evidence in general is not that strong, since only half of the colour sketches he executed on the trip were actually realised as studio watercolours. I suspect, therefore, that Girtin departed from his usual practice of making a pencil drawing only when a subject likely to attract an order was encountered in a suitable light or was accompanied by an appropriate weather effect. The resulting colour sketches would then both help in the production of the finished watercolour and provide a useful guide to prospective clients, who would get some idea of what their purchase might look like. The increase in the frequency of Girtin’s colour sketches was not simply a function of an aesthetic agenda shaped by naturalism, as has often been suggested, therefore, but was also closely linked to issues of production and consumption.
As with a number of sketches Girtin made on his trip to the north east in 1796 (such as TG1107), the composition of this view of Conwy Castle displays the influence of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–78). In this case, an etching depicting a temple interior – actually a dining room – in Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (see figure 1) provided Girtin with a dramatic template for his view of the British ruins. The off-centre view and the use of a ruined arch as a repeating motif receding into the distance recall the work of the earlier master, whose prints Girtin copied on at least half a dozen occasions, primarily for his patron John Henderson (1764–1843) (such as TG0892).
On a technical note, the paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as a laid cartridge paper by an unknown English manufacturer, worked on the artist’s favoured wireside, where the surface is impressed with the lines of the mould used in its manufacture (Smith, 2002b, p.86; Bower, Report). Bower has also pointed out that the sheet shows signs on the top, bottom and left edges of ‘Girtin having stretched his paper over a sketching board’, and this provides further evidence that the work was coloured on the spot (Bower, 2002, p.138). The artist used the same paper not just for his colour sketches, however; studio works including Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas (TG1062) and The West Front of Jedburgh Abbey (TG1231) were created on the same support.
1798 - 1799
The Great Hall, Conwy Castle
TG1306
1797
An Interior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
TG1107
1797 - 1798
The Bridge of Augustus at Rimini
TG0892
1797 - 1798
Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
TG1062
1796 - 1797
The West Front of Jedburgh Abbey
TG1231