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Works Thomas Girtin after James Moore

The Strand Gate, Winchelsea

1795 - 1796

Primary Image: TG0225: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), after James Moore (1762–99), The Strand Gate, Winchelsea, 1795–96, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, 19.8 × 26 cm, 7 ¾ × 10 ¼ in. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1975.3.1164).

Photo courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (Public Domain)

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) after James Moore (1762-1799)
Title
  • The Strand Gate, Winchelsea
Date
1795 - 1796
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
19.8 × 26 cm, 7 ¾ × 10 ¼ in
Object Type
Studio Watercolour; Work after an Amateur Artist
Subject Terms
Gothic Architecture: Town and Domestic Fortifications; Sussex View

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0225
Girtin & Loshak Number
99 as 'View at Winchelsea'
Description Source(s)
Viewed in 2001

Provenance

Lucia Newdegate (1896–1982); her sale, Christie’s, 14 March 1952, lot 254 as 'A View at Winchelsea', by Joseph Mallord William Turner (one of five); bought by 'Agnew', £42; Thos. Agnew & Sons; Tom Girtin (1913–94); bought by John Baskett on behalf of Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975

Exhibition History

New Haven, 1986a, no.41

Bibliography

Farrant, 2001, no.198, p.338

About this Work

There is no evidence that Girtin ever visited Winchelsea and, like the two views of the town’s church that he produced for his first significant patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99) (TG0305 and TG0352), this work was almost certainly made after one of Moore’s sketches that has since been lost. Moore made a close-up view of the Strand Gate and this was published in his Monastic Remains and Ancient Castles in England and Wales with the note that the antiquarian had sketched the gateway on 16 July 1790 (Moore, 1792, p.58). Moore seems to have returned to the town in 1795 and it was presumably on that trip that he made a drawing of the view taken from the north east looking up towards the fourteenth-century Strand Gate, though this time with more emphasis placed on the location of the gateway and its surrounding buildings. This was one of the five structures that were built to protect the new planned town decreed by Edward I in 1281 to replace the old settlement, which was being threatened by the encroaching sea. Ironically, the spot chosen by Moore for his view had once seen large trading vessels docked along the river Brede, but the sea had retreated, leaving the new town landlocked and facing an uncertain economic future. The larger format of Girtin’s watercolour, together with the greater emphasis placed on the landscape setting, suggests that like the view of the Alard tomb in the church at Winchelsea (TG0352), this may be one of the last works that Girtin produced for Moore from one of his patron’s sketches, as opposed to his own on-the-spot drawings.

1793 - 1794

The East End of the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea

TG0305

(?) 1796

One of the Alard Monuments in the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea

TG0352

(?) 1796

One of the Alard Monuments in the Church of St Thomas, Winchelsea

TG0352

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

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