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Works (?) Thomas Girtin and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) John Henderson

The Inner Harbour, Dover, with the Castle Beyond

1795 - 1796

Primary Image: TG0817: (?) Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after (?) John Henderson (1764–1843), The Inner Harbour, Dover, with the Castle Beyond, 1795–96, graphite and watercolour on paper, 19.8 × 25.9 cm, 7 ¾ × 10 ¼ in. Brighton Museum and Art Gallery (FA100007).

Photo courtesy of Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust, Brighton & Hove (All Rights Reserved)

Description
Creator(s)
(?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) John Henderson (1764-1843)
Title
  • The Inner Harbour, Dover, with the Castle Beyond
Date
1795 - 1796
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
19.8 × 25.9 cm, 7 ¾ × 10 ¼ in
Object Type
Monro School Copy; Work after an Amateur Artist
Subject Terms
Coasts and Shipping; Dover and Kent

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0817
Description Source(s)
Viewed in February 2020

Provenance

J. Palser & Sons; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons (stock no.4181), 22 January 1903 as 'In the Pents Dover' by Joseph Mallord William Turner; sold to William George Rawlinson (1840–1928), 3 February 1903; Christie’s, 28 June 1912, lot 88 as 'The Inner Harbour, Dover' by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons (stock no.7747); sold to Alfred George Edward Godden (1850–1933), 10 June 1913, £48 (lent to Hove, 1928); bequeathed to the Gallery, 1933

Exhibition History

Agnew’s, 1903, no.262 as ’In the Pens, Dover’ by Joseph Mallord William Turner; Agnew’s, 1913, no.97 as ’Inner Harbour, Dover’ by Joseph Mallord William Turner; Hove Museum, Loan Exhibition, 1928 (catalogue untraced); Brighton, 1979, no.51

Bibliography

Rawlinson and Finberg, 1909, pl.IV as 'The Pent, Dover' by Joseph Mallord William Turner

About this Work

This view of vessels in the inner harbour at Dover, with the castle beyond, is currently attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), but, given its subject matter, it appears to be a strong candidate for identification as one of the hundred or so Dover views that were sold from the collection of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) at his posthumous sale in 1833, many of which have subsequently been shown to be collaborations between Turner and Girtin. Similar Dover views, such as Dover Harbour: The Stern of a Large Ship, and Smaller Vessels (TG1473), were copied from drawings by the amateur artist John Henderson (1764–1843), who lent Monro his ‘outlines of Shipping & Boats’, described by the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) as ‘Very ingenious & careful’, ‘for this purpose’ (Farington, Diary, 1 December 1795; Farington, Diary, 30 December 1794). The source for this work may not have been found, but the depiction of a disparate group of vessels moored in a picturesque harbour overlooked by the castle, combined with a palpable interest in the minutiae of marine labour, suggests that it too was based on an outline drawing by Henderson.

It does not automatically follow from this that the Monro School copy was authored by Girtin and Turner, however. In the first instance, there is no clearly evident pencil work against which to test Girtin’s contribution to what, in the case of the marine views of Dover and its shipping, was always a significant part of the production process. Additionally, there is the colouring of the work, which lacks Turner’s customary subtlety of touch. Thus, the sky is formulaic, the water is conventional and the distant buildings are indicated by a series of flat planes that, without any aerial perspective, create no credible sense of recession. In other words, the colouring appears to be closer to the practice of Edward Dayes (1763–1804), Girtin’s master, than to the sparing application of washes of carefully modulated tones of blue and grey that Turner weaves amongst Girtin’s pencil work in characteristic Monro School subjects such as Vessels Anchored in Dover Harbour (TG0813). Girtin and Turner were certainly heavily influenced by Dayes’ manner of colouring, but this was arguably at an earlier time than the date of 1795–96 I have adopted for the Monro School Henderson subjects, and I am increasingly inclined to attribute this work and another very Dayesian watercolour, Dover Harbour (see TG0804 figure 1), to Girtin’s master.

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: The Stern of a Large Ship, and Smaller Vessels

TG1473

1795 - 1796

Vessels Anchored in Dover Harbour, with the Castle Beyond

TG0813

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

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