- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The South Side of York Minster, Showing the Transept and the Western Towers
- Date
- 1796 - 1797
- Medium and Support
- Watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 45.7 × 56.7 cm, 18 × 22 ½ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Gothic Architecture: Cathedral View; Yorkshire View
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1050
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 181 as 'York Minster'; '1796–7'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 1999, 2002 and July 2024
Provenance
Entered the collection of the Fawkes family of Farnley Hall prior to 1911; then by descent
Exhibition History
(?) Royal Academy, London, 1797, no.486, no.489, no.499 or no.726 as ’View of York’; Grafton Galleries, London, 1911, no.183 as ’Lent by Mrs. Fawkes’; York, 1972, no.23; Harewood, 1999, no.30; London, 2002, no.50
Bibliography
Hill, 1996, pp.148–50; p.203
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1796 Northern Tour to Yorkshire, the North East and the Scottish Borders:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours

Bamburgh Castle, from the South
Cragside House, Northumberland (National Trust)

Durham Cathedral, from the South West
British Museum, London

The Ouse Bridge, York, from the North Shore
British Museum, London

The Ouse Bridge, York, from Skeldergate Postern
York Art Gallery

York: The New Walk on the Banks of the Ouse
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection

York Minster, from the South West
Private Collection

York Minster, from the Ouse, with St Mary’s Abbey
Harewood House, Yorkshire

The South Side of York Minster, Showing the Transept and the Western Towers
Private Collection, Yorkshire

York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
British Museum, London

Unidentified Gothic Ruins, Said to Be St Mary’s Abbey, York
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Private Collection

A Distant View of Ripon Minster, from the River Skell
Harewood House, Yorkshire

A Distant View of Rievaulx Abbey
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Private Collection

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Manchester Art Gallery

Easby Abbey, from the River Swale
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Church Beyond
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
British Museum, London

Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Richmond Castle and Bridge, from the River Swale
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool

Richmond Castle and Town, from the South East
Private Collection

Barnard Castle, from the River Tees
British Museum, London

Egglestone Abbey, from the River Tees
Gallery Oldham

Egglestone Abbey, on the River Tees
British Museum, London

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Durham Cathedral and Castle, from the River Wear
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Private Collection, Norfolk

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Durham Castle and Cathedral, from below the Weir; Dryburgh Abbey with the Eildon Hills Beyond
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Durham Cathedral, from the South West
Private Collection

St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Private Collection

Tynemouth Priory, from the Coast
Cleveland Museum of Art

Bothal Castle, from the River Wansbeck
Private Collection

A River Scene with a Tower, Said to Be the Tyne near Hexham
Leeds Art Gallery

Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Warkworth Castle, from the River Coquet
Private Collection, Norfolk

The Bridge at Warkworth, with the Castle Beyond
Untraced Works

Dunstanburgh Castle, Viewed from a Distance
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Dunstanburgh Castle: The Lilburn Tower
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Lindisfarne: An Interior View of the Ruins of the Priory Church
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

An Interior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Lindisfarne: The Nave and Crossing of the Priory Church
British Museum, London

An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

An Exterior View of the Ruins of Lindisfarne Priory Church
Private Collection

York Minster, from the South East, Layerthorpe Bridge and Postern to the Right
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept Looking North
Private Collection

Dryburgh Abbey: The South Transept from the Cloister
Private Collection

Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

Melrose Abbey: The Ruined Presbytery and the East Window
Cooper Gallery, Barnsley

Melrose Abbey, from the North East
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Jedburgh Abbey, from the North East
Private Collection

Jedburgh Abbey, from Jed Water
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
British Museum, London

The Village of Jedburgh, with the Abbey Ruins
Private Collection, Bedfordshire

The West Front of Jedburgh Abbey
British Museum, London

Jedburgh Abbey, from the South East
Blickling Hall, Norfolk (National Trust)

The Ruins of the Lady Chapel, near Bothal
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

Bamburgh Castle, from the Village
Guy Peppiatt Fine Art Ltd

St Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Victoria Gallery and Museum, University of Liverpool

Richmond, Yorkshire: The Seventeenth-Century House Known as St Nicholas
Private Collection

An Interior View of Fountains Abbey: The East Window from the Presbytery
Graves Gallery, Sheffield

St Mary’s, Old Malton, on the River Derwent
Untraced Works

York: Pavement, Looking towards All Saints
Private Collection
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About this Work
This fine view of the southern flank of York Minster, showing the two western towers and the thirteenth-century transept, was presumably made after a drawing sketched on Girtin’s tour to the northern counties and Scottish Borders in 1796. The view of the minster from this angle is very confined. Girtin faced a difficult challenge to fit all of the different elements of the architecture into the composition and, as David Hill has demonstrated, Girtin had to incorporate two different viewpoints (Hill, 1996, pp.148–49). As a result, the relationship between the facade of the transept and the rest of the building is not entirely satisfactory, and there are distortions in the architectural details, particularly in the circular window in the pediment, which is squashed into an oval shape. Nonetheless, the subtle play of light on what Edward Dayes (1763–1804) termed a ‘noble display of architectural beauty’ compensates for any faults in the perspective, with the result that this is one of Girtin’s most impressive depictions of a Gothic building (Dayes, Works, p.174). Turner faced the same challenge when he came to sketch the view on his 1797 visit to York (see figure 1); indeed, so close is the result that Hill initially suggested that Girtin may have based his finished work on the Turner sketch. However, a close comparison of the two drawings reveals numerous small discrepancies and Hill was to change his mind, later suggesting that the pencil drawing was in fact one of half a dozen or so examples of where Turner was ‘inspired’ by Girtin ‘to sketch the subject himself’ (Hill, 1999, p.48).
The link with Turner is of particular interest because of the watercolour’s provenance as part of the collection at Farnley Hall in Yorkshire, the seat of Turner’s great patron Walter Fawkes (1769–1825). Hill speculated that it might have been that Girtin was actually ‘noticed by Fawkes before Turner’, pointing to the fact that the patron’s famous ancestor, Guy Fawkes (1570–1606), was born and baptised a few metres away from the artist’s viewpoint (Hill, 1999, p.48); moreover, in the catalogue of Girtin’s 2002 bicentenary exhibition, I recklessly concluded that the ‘watercolour was commissioned by Walter Fawkes’ from the artist (Smith, 2002b, p.76). However, no work by Girtin was listed in the catalogue of the exhibition of watercolours from his collection that Fawkes organised in 1819, and, although it is not known precisely when the York view entered the collection of the Fawkes family – the first record of its ownership was not until 1911 (Exhibitions: Grafton Galleries, London, 1911) – it is now clear that it was not commissioned by Turner’s patron. Nonetheless, the work’s impressive scale and the amount of labour that went into recording the detailed view and realising it as a watercolour fit to stand its own as a framed object suggest that it was produced on commission, and, furthermore, that it was one of the drawings that Girtin sent to the 1797 Royal Academy exhibition as evidence of the progress of his art.