This is one of two versions (the other being TG1274) of a composition that was almost certainly produced from an untraced sketch dating from Girtin’s tour of the West Country in 1797. One of the views of the recently built Marine Barracks at Stonehouse in Plymouth, with Mount Edgecumbe beyond, was engraved and published in October 1798 by John Walker (active 1776–1802) for his Copper-Plate Magazine (see print after TG1274) (Walker, 1792–1802). Although this version has not been seen in public since its exhibition at a commercial gallery in 1951 and there is no known image, it is very likely that Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak were wrong to assume that it was this work that was engraved (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.167). The other version, which they listed as ‘Plymouth Harbour’ and as ‘at present untraced’, reappeared in 1979 and has much the stronger claim to be the source of the engraving, though a final confirmation of this must await the reappearance of this watercolour (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.209).

It is easy enough to see the attraction of such an uncompromising and unpicturesque image of the utilitarian buildings of the Marine Barracks for a publisher on the lookout for patriotic scenes at a time of war with revolutionary France, but the production of a second version of the scene is more problematic. I can only think that what The Copper-Plate Magazine termed the ‘terrestial paradise’ of Mount Edgecumbe overlooking the Hamoaze (the estuary formed at the mouth of the river Tamar), combined with a foreground and middle distance with elements familiar from Girtin’s more conventional coastal scenes, was enough to offset the effect of what, to our eyes, is a violent intrusion of the modern at its most unpicturesque. The barracks, which were built between 1779 and 1785 at the cost of £30,000 to accommodate 650 men, their officers, an infirmary and wash-houses, do not perhaps disrupt the effect of the engraving to the same degree, but the text is there to explain their significance. One possible explanation for the existence of a second version of the composition is that it was commissioned by someone with an interest in the navy or the local area. One of the versions appears to have been owned by the antiquarian author John Britton (1771–1857), who lent a watercolour titled ‘Mount Edgecumbe, from Stonehouse’ to an exhibition in 1822, and this may have been the ‘Mount Edgecumbe, with Entrance to Plymouth Harbour’ that he sold in 1832 (Exhibitions: London, 1822, no.260; Southgate, 22 June 1832, lot 1339); nonetheless, he does not seem to have had any particular association either with the area or with the navy.

1797 - 1798

The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth

TG1274

1797 - 1798

The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth

TG1274