Known until recently as Village Fair with Mountebanks, this uncharacteristic monochrome study was identified during the course of the preparation of this catalogue as showing the marketplace at Aberystwyth, and, even more surprisingly, it turns out to be a copy of an aquatint published by Samuel Ireland (1744–1800) in his Picturesque Views on the River Wye (see the source image above). According to the text, Ireland made the drawings for his Views on a tour along the length of the river in 1794, but the prints were not published until 1797 (Ireland, 1797). Therefore Girtin’s copy, together with two other views of Tintern also taken from the same source (TG0343 and TG0349), appears to postdate the rest of the artist’s Wye scenes by perhaps five years. As a result of the discovery of the source of the three later watercolours, it is now possible to say with some certainty that Girtin did not visit the much frequented picturesque river and that all of his views were therefore made from secondary sources. However, whilst it may have made sense to copy the work of another artist early on in his career – when his apprenticeship to Edward Dayes (1763–1804), combined with his lack of money, made it impossible to travel – by 1797 Girtin had completed the second of his annual tours and was exhibiting and selling watercolours made from his own on-the-spot sketches. All of this raises the question of why he should turn to a secondary source at this point and, indeed, what function copies such as this performed.

It is probably safe to discount the possibility that Girtin made the watercolour for reproduction in Ireland’s publication as he did not travel anywhere near Aberystwyth on the west Wales coast, though it is conceivable that he was employed to make a version of the engraver’s sketch and was not credited on the print for his labour. It is also possible that Girtin was simply attracted to the subject and that a copy of the print provided him with a useful set of figures that he might reuse in his own compositions. Though there are no precedents for this in the artist’s mature practice, there are echoes of the figures elsewhere, such as the man with the pig and the two figures on the donkey in Dartford High Street (TG0844). Perhaps the most likely option, however, is suggested by the two views of Tintern, and specifically by their small scale. Each of the drawings measures roughly 11.5 × 16.5 cm (4 ½ × 6 ½ in), which is the same size as a series of sketch-like commodities that Girtin produced following his trip to the north of England in 1796. The attraction of examples such as Bothal Castle, from the River Wansbeck (TG1089) and Seaton Sluice (TG1088) was that they were quick to produce and might be sold at a lower price to amateurs who appreciated the spontaneous production of what purported to be sketches made on the spot. Therefore, the economical application of sepia coloured wash here signified a spontaneously produced sketch from life, even as it copied the work of another artist through the medium of an aquatint. I suspect that all three Welsh views are thus examples of a new type of commodity that Girtin was pioneering around 1796–97.

Ireland’s text, in addition to describing the charms of a Welsh country market that ‘resembled rather a fair’ such was the gathering of people and animals, also included an easily missed but telling detail. To the left, he noted, ‘appears part of the castellated dwelling of Uvedale Price’ (1747–1829), the writer on the picturesque who did the most to develop a theoretical basis for the popular ramblings of the Revd William Gilpin (1724–1804) (Ireland, 1797, p.18). Ireland wrote on Gilpin’s failings as a topographer at length, and his book and its illustrations were aimed at supplanting the ‘general effect’ of the images Gilpin included in his earlier influential publication, Observations on the River Wye … Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty (1782) (Ireland, 1797, p.133). Nowhere does Girtin display the least interest in contemporary aesthetic theory, but it would be surprising if he did not share Ireland’s contempt for Gilpin’s ideas, which, from a professional artist’s point of view, provided a spurious justification for the limited capabilities of amateur artists and their engagement with the landscape.

(?) 1797

Tintern Abbey, from the River Wye

TG0343

(?) 1797

Tintern Abbey: The View from the Nave

TG0349

1795 - 1796

Dartford High Street

TG0844

1796 - 1797

Bothal Castle, from the River Wansbeck

TG1089

1796 - 1797

Seaton Sluice

TG1088