- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- (?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 21.6 × 32.4 cm, 8 ½ × 12 ¾ in
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- Monastic Ruins;; The West Country: Devon and Dorset
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1249
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 344 as 'The Tithe Barn'; '1800'
- Description Source(s)
- Sale Catalogue; Witt Library Photograph
Provenance
Herbert Horne (1864–1916); bought from him by Sir Edward Marsh (1872–1953), May 1904; bought from him by Thos. Agnew & Sons (stock no.9708), 3 May 1920; bought by Charles Morland Agnew (1855–1931), 7 February 1922, £60; then by inheritance
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1921, no.27 as ’A Ruined Abbey’; Agnew’s, 1953a, no.104
Bibliography
Oppé, 1921, p.135
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1797 West Country Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
The Ruined Chancel, Netley Abbey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
The Gateway of the Bishop's Palace, Wells
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge
A Distant View of Southampton
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
Bursledon Ferry on the River Hamble, near Southampton
Private Collection
The Hamble River, near Southampton
Private Collection
A Cliff-Top View, Probably on the Coast of Dorset
Leeds Art Gallery
The Market Rooms, Weymouth
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An Old Bridge, Possibly near Abbotsbury
Private Collection
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Leeds Art Gallery
Abbotsbury: The Tithe Barn, with a Pond
Private Collection
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Coast of Dorset, with Lyme Regis Below
Private Collection
A Panoramic View near Lyme Regis
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Above Lyme Regis, Looking across Marshwood Vale
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum
The Interior of Exeter Cathedral, Looking from the Nave
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter, from Trew’s Weir
Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Exeter Cathedral, from the South
Koriyama City Museum of Art
On the River Exe, Exeter
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Shaldon, Seen from Teignmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear, from Dartmouth
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Kingswear on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Sharpham House on the River Dart
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
Okehampton Castle, from the West Okement River
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Cattle by a River with a Castle Beyond, Probably Okehampton Castle
Private Collection
The Estuary of the River Taw
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Wells Cathedral, from the Moat of the Bishop's Palace
Private Collection
St Vincent's Rocks from Nightingale Valley, near Bristol
Private Collection
Bristol Cathedral, from College Green
National Gallery of Art, Washington
Bristol: St Mary Redcliffe, from the Harbour
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Bristol Harbour and St Mary Redcliffe
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
A Wharf with Shipping, Possibly at Bristol
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Ships in a Harbour, Possibly at Bristol
Harewood House, Yorkshire
An Unidentified Estuary, Probably in the West Country
Tate, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly a West-Country Tor
Tate, London
The Marine Barracks at Stonehouse, Plymouth
Private Collection
A House Reflected in the Waters of an Estuary
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence
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About this Work
This view of the great tithe barn at Abbotsbury in Dorset differs from Girtin’s other depictions of the same scene that derive from sketches that he made on his West Country tour in the autumn of 1797 (such as TG1246), in that it shows the whole of the building, including the eastern gable end. The view also includes more of the pond and of the thatched building to the right, and in both respects it resembles to a greater degree the small watercolour of the barn that Girtin painted around 1792–93 for his earliest patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99) (TG0146). This was produced around five years before Girtin visited the site himself, and it was worked up from a sketch that Moore made on his 1791 tour to the area (see source image TG0146). Although it is by no means clear-cut, I think there is something rather naive about the composition that suggests that it too was not based on one of Girtin’s own on-the-spot sketches. Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak date the work to 1800, which, in itself, does not mean that it could not have been copied from another source (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.181). However, given that the work has not been seen in public since the early 1950s and is known only from a poor-quality image, it has not been possible to confirm this. Indeed, and I am loathe to comment on the attribution of a work solely on the basis of an old black and white photograph, the execution appears particularly weak. Until the work’s reappearance confirms the matter either way, I am minded to add a question mark next to Girtin’s name.
1797 - 1798
The Tithe Barn, Abbotsbury
TG1246
1792 - 1793
The Tithe Barn at Abbotsbury, with St Catherine’s Chapel on the Hill
TG0146
1792 - 1793
The Tithe Barn at Abbotsbury, with St Catherine’s Chapel on the Hill
TG0146