- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Hamble River, near Southampton
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 12.7 × 36.2 cm, 5 × 14 ¼ in
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- Hampshire View; River Scenery
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1238
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 398 as '1800'
- Description Source(s)
- Girtin and Loshak, 1954
Provenance
Madeline Clifton (née Knox) (1890–1975); Thos. Agnew & Sons; bought by the Hon. Marion Evelyn Wood (née Ashton); given to Baroness Ashton of Hyde (née Marjorie Nell Brookes); with her in 1954
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1953a, no.95 as ’Near Southampton, previously known as Easby Abbey’
Place depicted
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About this Work
This work has not been seen in public since an exhibition in 1953, and, because it does not seem to have been photographed, we are dependent on the description of Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak, who must have viewed it shortly prior to the publication of their catalogue (Agnew’s, 1953a, no.95). They recorded that the panoramic composition encompassed a view of the river Hamble near Southampton that included the ‘estuary at low tide with channels and mud flats; low wooded hills beyond; some ships on the water’, and they dated it to around 1800 (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.189). It is clearly not possible to confirm the attribution of the work, though its subject (a view near Southampton) and the extreme extended proportions of the composition (almost three times as wide as high) both point to a Girtin work resulting from his West Country trip of 1797. Only the work known as An Unidentified Estuary (TG1293) exceeds the proportions recorded here, and that too appears to show a West Country scene. It would be particularly interesting to see the work again, not least to establish its relationship to another panoramic view on the river Hamble that is now attributed to François Louis Thomas Francia (1772–1839) (TG1238) but that sounds from Girtin and Loshak’s description as though it shows a similar scene.
1798 - 1799
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
TG1293
1797 - 1798
The Hamble River, near Southampton
TG1238