This view of the west front of Peterborough Cathedral, shown from close to the north-west tower, is the earliest of four watercolours (the others being TG1018, TG1019 and TG1020) that Girtin made after a detailed pencil sketch (TG1014), as well as another monochrome study (TG1016), that were both executed on his first significant trip outside London. The tour through the Midland counties, in the summer of 1794, was organised by the artist’s earliest patron, the antiquarian and amateur artist James Moore (1762–99), who accompanied Girtin to Lincoln, Southwell, Lichfield, as well as Peterborough, so that his young protégé might sketch at first hand a group of the nation’s finest Gothic buildings. The watercolour, which is dated 1794, is one of four cathedral views that were subsequently commissioned by Moore and that Girtin seems to have painted immediately after his return from the journey (the others being TG0996, TG1002 and TG1008). This work and another of Moore’s commissions, a comparable view of the West Front of Lichfield Cathedral (TG1002), were shown at the annual exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1795, where they made a very public statement about the patron’s support for the artist as well as demonstrating the progress the young artist was making (Royal Academy, London, 1795, nos.611 and 636). Thus, a year earlier, Girtin had shown the watercolour Ely Cathedral, from the South East (TG0202), which had been based on a drawing by his patron, but now, working from his own on-the-spot sketches, he was able to render the complex architectural details of the cathedrals with greater fidelity and in compositions that, in contrast to the Ely view, displayed a more secure grasp of perspective. The watercolour follows the original form of the outline drawing (TG1015), before the substitution of an alternative version of the north-west tower, with an extra row of arcades, to create the model for the final watercolour (TG1020).

Girtin may no longer have had to rely on his patron’s drawings any more, but his independence was still circumscribed since it was surely Moore who chose the itinerary of the 1794 tour and selected the subjects and the viewpoints from which the young artist made his sketches. In this case, the close-up view from the north west gives prominence to the cathedral’s unique feature: its grand theatrical thirteenth-century west front, with three giant arches leading to an elaborately decorated set of recesses and a fine fourteenth-century porch in the centre. Moore’s commissions from Girtin had hitherto concentrated on recording the nation’s ruined abbeys and castles, which the antiquarian feared were destined to disappear through neglect (Moore, 1792, p.58). But Moore’s 1794 tour, with its concentration on the great cathedral buildings of the Midland counties, was at least partly motivated by his perception of a different threat to the nation’s architectural heritage, one that came from modern ‘improvers’, whose restorations at Durham and other cathedrals were deemed by antiquarians to be ill-informed at best, and often downright destructive. Peterborough was largely spared the fate of many of the nation’s great sacred buildings, however, and it may be that it was the building’s status as a fine example of the decorative qualities of the Early English style of Gothic architecture that lay behind the commission to Girtin. The same status may also have made it a suitable pair for the view of Lichfield (TG1002).

Girtin’s almost exact contemporary, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), also toured the Midland counties in the summer of 1794 and he likewise made sketches of the west front of Peterborough Cathedral (see TG1014 figure 1). This is likely to have predated the beginnings of Girtin and Turner’s association at the home of their mutual patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833). Although Turner visited and sketched many of the same medieval sites at Newark, Warwick, Kenilworth, Lincoln and Lichfield, as well as Peterborough, there is no evidence that the two artists were influenced by each other’s choice of subject, or indeed that they met up on their trips. Nonetheless, as Andrew Wilton has pointed out, the two artists’ style when treating architectural subjects was extremely close at this point, leading to subsequent confusion over the attribution of their drawings, though this was no doubt because they were working for the same type of client, who demanded careful attention to the details of the great Gothic structures they depicted (Wilton, 1979, pp.36–38). In this case, the watercolour that was commissioned from Turner’s sketch (see figure 1) was actually produced for Monro himself, and it was shown in the same Royal Academy exhibition in 1795 as the view of Peterborough that Girtin painted for Moore (Royal Academy, London, 1795, nos.585 and 611). With the views hung just a few metres apart in the Council Room, visitors to the exhibition would have been in a good position to appreciate how the two seventeen-year-olds adopted slightly different strategies to cope with the unpicturesque lateral extension of the facade. Thus, although both chose a vertical composition to mitigate against the extreme horizontal nature of the west front, Turner chose to cut the building to the right to create an asymmetrical view, whilst Girtin employed a more oblique angle. Sadly, such subtle distinctions were lost on reviewers of the exhibition, who typically passed over the contents of the Council Room, the main area for the display of watercolours at this date.

1794

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

TG1018

(?) 1794

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

TG1019

(?) 1796

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

TG1020

(?) 1794

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

TG1014

(?) 1794

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

TG1016

1794 - 1795

TG0996

1794

The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral

TG1002

1794

Lincoln Cathedral, from the West

TG1008

1794

The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral

TG1002

(?) 1794

Ely Cathedral, from the South East

TG0202

(?) 1796

The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral

TG1020

1794

The West Front of Lichfield Cathedral

TG1002