- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 20.5 × 27 cm, 8 ⅛ × 10 ⅝ in
- Inscription
‘Girtin’ lower centre, by Thomas Girtin (the signature has been cut, suggesting that it once extended onto an original mount which has been lost)
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- The Landscape Park; Windsor and Environs
-
- Collection
-
- Private Collection, Norfolk
- (1-E-17)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1369
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 279i as 'Windsor Castle from the Great Park'; '1798'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001, 2013 and April 2022
Provenance
J. Palser & Sons (stock no.1949); bought by 'Appleby', 10 December 1883, £18; his sale, Christie’s, 25 May 1886, lot 114; bought by Thos. Agnew & Sons, 11 gns (stock no.8002); bought by Edward Harris, 11 July 1887, £21; his sale, Christie's, 28 November 1910, lot 48; bought by 'Palser', £27 6s; J. Palser & Sons; bought by Sir Hickman Bacon (1855–1945), 10 April 1911, £60; then by descent
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1887, no.275; London, 1927, no catalogue; London, 1946, no.89; Arts Council, 1946, no.74; Boston, 1948, no.139; Agnew’s, 1953a, no.90; Manchester, 1975, no.46; Dulwich, 2001, no.7; Kendal, 2012, no.7
Bibliography
Davies, 1924, pl.67; Mayne, 1949, p.106; Hawcroft, 1962, p.26
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
Girtin’s earliest views of Windsor, Eton and their surrounds were all drawn after works by other artists (as with TG0157), and, initially at least, it makes sense to investigate the possibility that he did likewise in this scene, showing the castle from the south west looking across the Great Park. Another watercolour of a more distant view, but also taken from the south west, Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill (TG0907), thus bears a distinct resemblance to a composition by John Robert Cozens (1752–97) that is best known from a watercolour at the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford (see TG1467 figure 1), and Cozens therefore seems the most likely candidate as Girtin’s source. Girtin copied another British scene by the earlier artist, a view of London from Greenwich (TG0862), and a copy of the same Cozens composition, variously attributed to Girtin and to Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), also exists (TG1467). The fact that this watercolour probably postdates Girtin’s work with Turner at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), where they realised countless versions of compositions by Cozens, does not invalidate the possibility that it too was based on a prototype by the older artist. However, on balance, I think there are sufficient differences between this view and the more overtly Cozens-like scene of Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill to suggest that it was the outcome of an untraced on-the-spot sketch by Girtin. This is supported by the existence of another Windsor view, an outline drawing of the castle from the Thames (TG0182) that can plausibly be associated with a visit to the town around 1797–98.
The latter view, Windsor Castle, from Datchet Lane, suggests that Girtin sought out a new aspect to one of the most commonly depicted subjects in eighteenth-century landscape painting but that he did not find any purchasers. The view of the castle from the south west across the Great Park, in comparison, continued to sell, despite, or perhaps because, of the fact that it was part of the repertoire of so many artists, including, in addition to Cozens, Paul Sandby (c.1730–1809) and Turner himself. Turner’s Windsor from the Forest (see figure 1), which was engraved in 1804 from an early watercolour now in the Harewood Collection, Yorkshire, is close enough to Girtin’s view for the late Eric Shanes to have suggested that it influenced his work, and even that the two artists sketched together (Shanes, 2001, p.26). This is very unlikely, but it is nonetheless a useful reminder that even if Girtin did visit Windsor and sketch the view himself, he did not bring anything particularly new to the subject. Although the verdant scene has been compromised by fading, the castle, as a potent symbol of national identity, still stands proud over the majestic image of the royal parkland, with a herd of deer resting in the sun safe, at present at least, from the hunt. The mature trees of the park, indelibly associated at a time of war with the ships of the Royal Navy, are contrasted with the partly ruined birch trees in the foreground, which nonetheless provide firewood for the woman and child, who rest after their labours. This, we are invited to assume, was at the dispensation of a benevolent monarch who, as in so many views of the Great Park, is the embodiment of the model landowner in the ultimate country estate. The birch trees seem to have been something of an afterthought, however, as the blue of the sky clearly shows through areas where the green of the foliage has faded.
1792 - 1793
Windsor Castle: The Norman Gateway and the Round Tower, with Part of the Queen’s Lodge
TG0157
1797 - 1798
Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
TG0907
1795 - 1796
London, from Greenwich Hill
TG0862
1795 - 1800
Windsor Castle, Viewed from the South West
TG1467
1797 - 1798
Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
TG0182