- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) after Unknown Artist
- Title
-
- The Interior of Tintern Abbey, Showing the Choir and North Transept
- Date
- 1792 - 1793
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and pen and ink on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 37.8 × 26.6 cm, 14 ⅞ × 10 ½ in
- Inscription
‘T. Girtin’ lower centre, by Thomas Girtin
- Subject Terms
- Monastic Ruins; South Wales; The Wye Valley
-
- Collection
-
- Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
- (FAW 155)
- Catalogue Number
- TG0172
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 49 as 'Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire'; '1793'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2002
Provenance
Richard Haworth (1820–83); Reginald Coddington; Mrs Cayley; presented to the Gallery, 1918
Exhibition History
New York, 1987, no.177; Grasmere, 1998, no.73; London, 2002, no.32
Place depicted
Other entries in Topography without Travel:
The British Landscape at Second Hand

Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
Untraced Works

Windsor Castle: The Norman Gateway and the Round Tower, with Part of the Queen's Lodge
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

The Interior of Tintern Abbey, Showing the Choir and North Transept
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

A View in Windsor Great Park with Deer
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

An Ancient House, Possibly in Sussex
Private Collection

The Interior of Tintern Abbey, Looking towards the West Window from the Choir
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery

The Ruins of Newark Priory Church
Tate, London

Lancaster Castle and Priory Church, Seen with the Old Bridge over the River Lune
Private Collection

Barnard Castle and Bridge, from the River Tees
Tate, London

The Ruined West Front of Dunbrody Abbey Church, County Wexford, Ireland
Tate, London

The Refectory of Walsingham Priory
British Museum, London

The Ruined East End of Walsingham Priory Church
Tate, London

The West Tower of Rumburgh Priory Church
Tate, London

Dumbarton Rock, from the North
Tate, London

Part of the Ruins of Middleham Castle
Tate, London

Kidwelly Church, with the Castle Beyond
Tate, London

Kelso Abbey, from the North West
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

The Keep, Portchester Castle, from the North East
Tate, London

The Keep of Rochester Castle, from the South East
Tate, London

Part of the Ruins of Middleham Castle
Tate, London

Margam Abbey Church, from the North West
Tate, London

The Ruined East End of Walsingham Priory Church
Tate, London

The Ruins of the Holy Ghost Chapel, Basingstoke
Tate, London

The Medieval Kitchen, Stanton Harcourt
Tate, London

Part of the Ruins of Lewes Castle, from the West
Tate, London

Glasgow High Street, Looking towards the Cathedral
Tate, London

The Keep of Hedingham Castle, from the East
Tate, London

The South Transept, Much Wenlock Priory Church
Tate, London

Newport Castle, Monmouthshire
Private Collection

Portchester Castle, from the Outer Bailey
Tate, London

The Refectory of Walsingham Priory
Tate, London

An Unidentified Church close to a Road
British Museum, London

The Keep of Hedingham Castle, from the South West
Tate, London

Kirkstall Abbey, from the North West
Tate, London

Kirkstall Abbey, from the North West
Tate, London

The Ruined Gateway of Mettingham Castle
Tate, London

The Keep of Rochester Castle, Seen from outside the Walls
Tate, London

Tintern Abbey, from the River Wye
Private Collection

Tintern Abbey: The View from the Nave
Private Collection

The Market at Aberystwyth
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Lancaster Castle, from the River Lune
Tate, London

Lancaster Castle, from the River Lune
Tate, London

Lancaster Priory Church, Seen with the Old Bridge over the River Lune
Tate, London

Buttermere Bridge, from the Fish Inn
Tate, London

The Medieval Kitchen, Stanton Harcourt
Private Collection, Norfolk

Rochester Cathedral, from the North East, with the Castle Beyond
Tate, London

Glasgow High Street: Looking towards the Cathedral
Tate, London

A Distant View of Corfe Castle
Tate, London

Chichester Cathedral, from the South West
Tate, London

The Gatehouse of Amberley Castle
Tate, London

A Lake and Mountains, Possibly in the Lake District
Tate, London

A Lake and Mountains, Possibly in the Lake District
Tate, London

An Unidentified View across a Lake, or along a Coast
Tate, London

A Road by a Pond, with a Church in the Distance
Tate, London

A Road by a Pond, with a Church in the Distance
British Museum, London

A Church Tower amongst Trees, with a Cart in the Foreground
British Museum, London

An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
Tate, London

Trees near a Lake or River, at Twilight
Tate, London

A Hilly Landscape, with a Two-Arched Bridge
Private Collection

A Distant View of Tynemouth Priory, from the Sea
Tate, London

An Upland Landscape, Possibly in Northumberland
Private Collection

A Bridge in the Lake District, Possibly Grange Bridge, Borrowdale
Private Collection

Bridgnorth, on the River Severn
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Knaresborough, from the River Nidd
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 interior view of Tintern Abbey on the river Wye forms a pair with another vertical composition of the picturesque ruins that is the same size and is also signed (TG0213). Stylistically, the works both date from the period of Girtin’s apprenticeship to Edward Dayes (1763–1804) or soon after its termination, and therefore to a time before the young artist had gained the chance to travel and sketch the scenery of the Wye for himself. The watercolour, like all of his early views of scenery a distance away from London, was therefore produced after the work of another artist. However, unlike its pair, where there is firm evidence that Girtin adapted a sketch by Dayes, the source here has not been traced. Girtin’s earliest patron, the amateur artist and keen antiquarian James Moore (1762–99), also sketched the ruins of Tintern (see TG0213 figure 2), but his views lack the spatial complexity shown here, and the ambitious nature of Girtin’s composition strongly suggests that an untraced sketch by Dayes again provided the young artist with his model. This is in striking contrast with Girtin’s almost exact contemporary, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), who visited and sketched Tintern in the summer of 1792 and soon thereafter began producing studio watercolours for various patrons. Although not without some evident difficulties, Turner was more successful than Girtin in creating coherent and convincing spaces from outline drawings of Tintern (see figure 1), though his greater mastery of perspective was no doubt aided by the fact that he did not have to rely on the sketches of others.
Turner’s watercolour of the interior of Tintern Abbey dates from slightly later than Girtin’s, but it displays many of the same stylistic influences from Dayes. Features such as the predominant palette of blues and greens, the conventional forms of the foliage, and the darkened foreground (an aspect found in the work of both artists at this time) owe their origins to Dayes, though another trait, the strong penned outline employed here by Girtin, was not adopted by Turner. Intriguingly, Turner’s watercolour was commissioned by Moore in the same year (1794) that Girtin’s first significant patron took him on a tour of the Midlands in order to sketch some of the Gothic monuments that he had hitherto had to realise from the work of other artists. Moore presumably recognised that whilst an artist might capture many of the picturesque aspects of a scene from a secondary view of the scenery, the other qualities that attracted visitors to Tintern required more. Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758–1838), for instance, thought that the ‘beautiful Gothic aisle, overhung with ivy in the most picturesque manner’ produced a ‘striking effect on the mind and senses’ (Thompson, 1983, p.101). The ‘striking effect’ produced in the minds of visitors also included a ‘reverential and religious awe’, and, as Samuel Ireland (1744–1800) specified, the ‘pointed arches above … magically suspended … raise an idea of grandeur’ and ‘suggest ideas … of a melancholy tinge’ (Ireland, 1797, pp.135–36). The low viewpoint employed in both of Girtin’s watercolours of Tintern, the emphasis on the vertical and the enclosing force of the luxuriant foliage all help to produce a ‘striking effect’, but they are not enough to efface the sense that this is a secondhand experience of a space that has not been fully comprehended and that, consequently, not all of its potential as a subject was realised.
A watercolour sketch of the crossing of Tintern Abbey that has been exhibited as the work of Girtin (London, 1954, no.111) is no longer considered to be by the artist. It is catalogued by The Whitworth, Manchester, as ‘British, unattributed’ (see figure 2).
1792 - 1793
The Interior of Tintern Abbey, Looking towards the West Window from the Choir
TG0213