- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 12 × 24.6 cm, 4 ¾ × 9 ⅝ in
- Inscription
‘Windsor’ lower right, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Outline Drawing
-
- Collection
- Catalogue Number
- TG0182
- Description Source(s)
- Gallery Website
Provenance
Harold Broadfield Warren (1859–1934); presented to the Museum, 1937
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 and nearby Eton were all executed after sketches and prints made by other artists (for example, as in TG0157), but this view looking west to the castle from the Thames has a reasonable claim to having been sketched on the spot. Two watercolours of the view of the castle from Windsor Park (TG0907 and TG1369) appear to date from around 1797–98 on stylistic grounds, and if they too were made from on-the-spot sketches, the evidence all points to a visit around that date, and it is not inconceivable that the artist broke off from his journey to or from North Wales in the latter year. Windsor, in any case, was easily accessible from London, and, though there is nothing in the style of what is a thoroughly utilitarian sketch to help pin down a precise date, the panoramic proportions do suggest sometime after 1796. Girtin does not appear to have used the drawing as the basis for a watercolour and that is not entirely surprising, for, though the bend of the river Thames at this point provides an attractive broad foreground of water, the castle itself appears rather formless, and the Round Tower, to the right, looks less than imposing from this direction.
A colour sketch showing a view of Windsor Castle from Datchet Lane, including the Round Tower and the Norman Gateway (see figure 1), has been erroneously attributed to Girtin. The drawing, which is interleaved in a luxurious multi-volume extra-illustrated copy of the posthumous fourth edition of Thomas Pennant’s (1726–98) Some Account of London (Pennant, 1805), is only loosely related stylistically to Girtin’s on-the-spot sketches and it appears to date from slightly later. Indeed, it is possible to attribute the drawing to the animal painter Robert Hills (1769–1844), an assiduous on-the-spot sketcher who visited Windsor to study the deer in the Great Park.
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
1797 - 1798
Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
TG1369