- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Westminster, from the West Corner of the Adelphi Terrace
- Date
- (?) 1796
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour and pen and ink on paper
- Dimensions
- 29.5 × 21.7 cm, 11 ⅝ × 8 ½ in
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work
- Subject Terms
- London and Environs; The River Thames
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG1385
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 139 as 'Westminster from Adelphi Terrace'; '1795–6'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 1993
Provenance
Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833); his posthumous sale, Christie’s, 28 June 1833, lot 50 as 'The Thames from Adelphi' by Thomas Girtin; bought by 'Monro', £1 5s; Alexander Monro (1802–44); his posthumous sale, Christie's, 19 May 1845, lot 87 as 'View of the Thames, from the Adelphi - a beautiful small drawing, in pen and Indian ink'; ... E. V. Walker; bought by J. Palser & Sons, 1 July 1907 (stock no.16377); bought by Sir Walter Prideaux (1846–1928), 9 December 1907; then by descent to Walter Treverbian Prideaux (1875–1958); his sale, Sotheby’s, 6 June 1951, lot 40; bought by 'Polak', £65; Bury Street Gallery, London; Sotheby’s, 11 July 1991, lot 168, £4,400; A. H. Baldwin & Sons
Exhibition History
Birmingham, 1993, no.104
Place depicted
Other entries in London and the Home Counties, Together with Miscellaneous Studies and Views

Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum

Great Bookham Church, from the East
Private Collection, Norfolk

Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire (National Trust)

The Gateway, St Albans Abbey
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

St Albans Abbey: The West Porch
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

St Albans Abbey, from the North West
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

St Albans Abbey, from the North West
Private Collection

An Interior View of St Albans Abbey, from the Crossing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

The Interior of St Albans Abbey
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
Private Collection, Norfolk

Windsor Great Park: Herne’s Oak with a Herd of Deer
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Stags Fighting amongst a Herd of Deer in Windsor Great Park, with the Castle in the Distance
Private Collection

A Herd of Deer in Richmond Park
Private Collection

A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section One: Somerset House to Blackfriars Bridge
Private Collection

A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Two: The Surrey Bank
Private Collection

A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
Private Collection

Westminster, from the West Corner of the Adelphi Terrace
Private Collection

The Thames with St Paul's and Blackfriars Bridge
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Shipping on the Thames, Looking down Limehouse Reach towards Greenwich, with the Church of St Alfege in the Distance
Private Collection

A Haystack on a Farm, on the Road to Harrow-on-the-Hill
Private Collection

A Panoramic Landscape, near Norwood
Private Collection

Westminster Abbey, Seen from Green Park and the Queen's Basin
National Gallery of Art, Washington

St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

St Paul's Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Untraced Works

St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Private Collection

St Paul’s Cathedral, from St Martin’s-le-Grand
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A River Scene, with Boats
Victoria and Albert Museum, London

An Imaginary Coast Scene with the Horizontal Air Mill at Battersea
Private Collection

London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London

London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London

Turver’s Farm, Radwinter
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Farm with an Unidentified Windmill
Private Collection

Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence

Barns and a Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Private Collection, Norfolk

Trees and Pond, Said to Be near Bromley
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection

A Sandpit, near Logs Hill, Widmore
Private Collection

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Stone-next-Dartford
British Museum, London

A Farmhouse in a Woodland Setting, Said to Be in Devon
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

Farm Buildings, Probably in Surrey
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester

Tintern Village, Seen across the Forge Pond, Formerly Known as ‘The Mill-Pond’
Private Collection

A Picturesque House Overlooking a River, with Distant Windmills
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, Bloomington

The West End of an Unidentified Church
Private Collection

Effingham Churchyard, Formerly Known as 'A Country Churchyard'
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge

An Unidentified Windmill, Probably in Lambeth
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston

Unidentified Buildings, Herne Hill
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

Study of a Sailor on Board a Ship; A Fishing Boat
Private Collection

The Frozen Watermill, from William Cowper's The Task
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

An Unidentified Subject, Probably from James Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian
Tate, London

The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Study of a Woman Reading; A Slight Study of a Seated Woman
Private Collection

Portrait Study of a Man, Said to Be the Artist George Barret the Younger
Private Collection

A Study of a Lion from the Tower of London
Private Collection

An Open Field with a Cart and Horses, Known as ‘The Carter’
British Museum, London

A Church Seen across Fields, with Another Sketch Depicting a Woman
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino

A Landscape with Figures by Railings
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Self-Portrait of the Artist at Work
British Museum, London

An Unidentified Landscape, with a Church amongst Trees
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven

A Cottage and a Windmill Surrounded by Trees
Private Collection

St Paul’s Cathedral, from the Thames
Private Collection

The Head of a Youth, Here Identified as Joseph Mallord William Turner
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This monochrome study of the view west from the terrace of the Adelphi shows, from left to right, a few arches of Westminster Bridge, the four towers of St John’s Smith Square and the upper part of Westminster Abbey, with the eighteenth-century western towers prominent. However, these elegant monuments are dwarfed by the water tower of the York Buildings Waterworks and, in front of that, by the back of a row of houses in George Street adjacent to the Adelphi. The Adelphi was the great riverside speculative development of Robert Adam (1728–92), with his brothers John Adam (1721–92) and James Adam (1732–94), which situated a monumental row of terraces above huge vaults for commercial use, and it was here that Girtin’s important early patron Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) took up residence in 1794. In addition to the numerous copies that Girtin made at Monro’s home in collaboration with his contemporary Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), the artist was commissioned to depict the magnificent prospect from his patron’s apartment towards the west end of the terrace, and the result was the 180-degree panoramic drawing that terminates in a very similar view of the riverbank at Westminster (TG1380), where again the water tower and the same back wall dominate. This monochrome view, however, though clearly related to the panoramic vista in terms of the subject, was taken from lower down (at the level of the terrace) and from a closer viewpoint, and it does not seem to be related to the pencil drawing; certainly, it was not produced as a study for the 180-degree view.
Whilst it is simple enough to see why Monro might have wanted a record of the vista from his home, this view, which is even more unconventional than the equivalent section of the 180-degree drawing in terms of the way in which some of London’s finest monuments are obscured, is a less obvious object of interest for the patron. The view from very close to his home was no doubt important for Monro, but presumably less so than what Girtin did with such unpromising material. Taking his inspiration from the great master of urban topography, Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto) (1697–1768), Girtin worked a variation of the Venetian visitor’s subject using many of the stylistic touches that he had learnt from him (see figure 1), and in a medium that was closely associated with him. The result is a curious hybrid that departs from the conventions of urban topography that Canaletto passed on to a generation of younger British artists whilst also demonstrating the influence that his draughtsmanship had on Girtin at this time. As in the case of the monochrome views of the nearby ruins of the Savoy Hospital (TG0368), which Girtin also depicted for Monro, there is therefore a powerful synergy between the subject (a riverside view) and an artist (Canaletto) whose work was much appreciated by his patron and that, indeed, was available for study in a collection that shared the same Thames-side location.
(?) 1796
A Panoramic View of the Thames from the Adelphi Terrace, Section Three: Westminster Bridge to York Stairs
TG1380
1795 - 1796
An Exterior View of Part of the Ruins of the Savoy Hospital
TG0368