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Works Thomas Girtin and Joseph Mallord William Turner after John Robert Cozens

The View from Mirabello, the Villa of Count Algarotti in the Euganean Hills

1794 - 1797

Primary Image: TG0706: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after John Robert Cozens (1752–97), The View from Mirabello, the Villa of Count Algarotti in the Euganean Hills, 1794–97, graphite and watercolour on paper, 16.7 × 23.4 cm, 6 ⅝ × 9 ¼ in. Private Collection.

Photo courtesy of Paul Mellon Centre Photographic Archive, PA-F05206-0065 (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Artist's source: John Robert Cozens (1752–97), View from Mirabello, the Villa of Count Algarotti in the Euganean Hills, graphite and varnish on laid paper, 19.1 × 25.1 cm, 7 ½ × 9 ⅞ in. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1977.14.4538).

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

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after John Robert Cozens (1752-1797)
Title
  • The View from Mirabello, the Villa of Count Algarotti in the Euganean Hills
Date
1794 - 1797
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
16.7 × 23.4 cm, 6 ⅝ × 9 ¼ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy
Subject Terms
Italian View: The North

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0706
Description Source(s)
Auction Catalogue

Provenance

Christie's, 9 November 1976, lot 34 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner; bought by P & D Colnaghi & Co. Ltd, £2,000; Christie's, 17 November 1981, lot 24 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner, £1,800

Exhibition History

Colnaghi’s, 1979, no.49

About this Work

This view from Mirabello, a villa in the Euganean Hills south west of Padua, displays many of the signs that mark the unique collaboration between Girtin and his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Here they were employed across three winters, probably between 1794 and 1797, to make ‘finished drawings’ from the ‘Copies’ of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings of Cozens’ and other artists, amateur and professional, either from Monro’s collection or lent for the purpose. As the two young artists later recalled, Girtin generally ‘drew in outlines and Turner washed in the effects’. ‘They went at 6 and staid till Ten’, which may account for the generally monochrome appearance of the works, and, as the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) reported, Turner received ‘3s. 6d each night’, though ‘Girtin did not say what He had’ (Farington, Diary, 12 November 1798).1

The view is based on a simple outline drawing by John Robert Cozens (1752–97), inscribed ‘From Mira – bella – the Villa of Count Algarotti – on the Euganian Hills – 10 miles from Padua June 19.’, that is mounted in an album now at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (see the source image above). This was almost certainly traced by Cozens himself from an on-the-spot sketch that he made on a second visit to Italy, in 1782 (Bell and Girtin, 1935, no.216), when the artist accompanied his patron William Beckford (1760–1844) through northern Italy to Naples. The sketch is in the first of seven sketchbooks that survive from the trip (The Whitworth, Manchester (D.1975.4.22)), and it was presumably traced by Cozens because the books were retained by Beckford. Monro’s posthumous sale, in 1833, contained only twenty or so sketches by Cozens, so the patron must have borrowed the majority of the ‘outlines or unfinished drawings’ copied by Girtin and Turner. In this case, the source of the watercolour was presumably purchased at the sale of ‘Mr COZENS’ in July 1794 by Sir George Beaumont (1753–1827).2 As Kim Sloan has noted, Beaumont mounted ‘215 “tracings” or drawings on oiled paper’ in an album that he presumably lent to Monro, and it was from this collection that the two young artists produced more than fifty watercolours (Sloan and Joyner, 1993, pp.89–91). Beckford’s trip to the Euganean Hills took the form of a day excursion from Padua, where he had paused on his journey to Naples, and it included a visit to the former country home of the writer and critic Francesco Algarotti (1712–64). Cozens made four sketches during the day, two of which furnished material for Monro School copies (the other being TG0707).

The bulk of the Monro School copies sold at the patron’s posthumous sale in 1833 were attributed to Turner alone. Although many have since been accepted as the result of the joint efforts of Girtin and Turner, especially since the publication of Andrew Wilton’s pioneering article in 1984, others, as here, have remained under Turner’s name (Wilton, 1984a, pp.8–23). The work is known only from a black and white photograph published in 1981, and at this distance all that can be said with any confidence is that there is nothing to suggest that it is anything other than a typical collaborative effort between Turner and Girtin.

1794 - 1797

A Convent on Monte della Madonna in the Euganean Hills

TG0707

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

Footnotes

  1. 1 The full diary entry, giving crucial details of the artists’ work at Monro’s house, is transcribed in the Documents section of the Archive (1798 – Item 2).
  2. 2 A full record of the sale is available in the Documents section of the Archive (1794 – Item 1)

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