- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- Windsor Park and Castle, from Snow Hill
- Date
- 1797 - 1798
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 20.3 × 27 cm, 8 × 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
- Catalogue Number
- TG0907
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 279ii as 'Windsor Castle from the Great Park'; '1798–9'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001
Provenance
Charles Sackville Bale (1791–1880); his posthumous sale, Christie’s, 13 May 1881, lot 90; bought by 'Palser', £25 4s; J. Palser & Sons; bought by Edward Cohen (1816–87), 1881; then by bequest to his niece, Annie Sophia Poulter (c.1846–1924); then by descent to Edward Alexander Poulter (1883–1973); J. Palser & Sons; bought by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Baron Fairhaven (1896–1966), 24 November 1926; bequeathed to the National Trust, 1966
Exhibition History
Agnew’s, 1953a, no.86
Bibliography
Mayne, 1949, pl.1; Bunt, 1949, p.37, p.74
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 East
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
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
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
St James’s Park, with Westminster Abbey in the Distance
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
Hawes Fine Art
London: The Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
London: The Interior of the Ruins of the Leathersellers’ Hall
British Museum, London
Pinckney’s Farm, Radwinter
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
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, University of Manchester
A House Seen across a Lake, 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
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
The Archangel Gabriel Awaiting Night, from John Milton's Paradise Lost
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
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
Old London Bridge, with the Shot Tower in Construction, and St Olave's Church
Private Collection
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About this Work
This view of Windsor Castle, looking across the Great Park from Snow Hill to the south west, essentially repeats a composition from the repertoire of any number of artists at the end of the eighteenth century, including Benjamin West (1738–1820), John Robert Cozens (1752–97) (see source image TG1467) and Paul Sandby (c.1730–1809) (see figure 1). Climbing Snow Hill, about four kilometres to the south, allows the great lateral extent of the castle to be viewed emerging organically from the parkland, with the more formal avenue of the Long Walk showing as a diagonal to the right. 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, this also seems to be the case here. The watercolour certainly bears a close resemblance to a composition by Cozens, best known from the version at the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum, Bedford, and copied by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) (see TG1467 figure 1). A copy of the same Cozens composition, variously attributed to Girtin and to Turner, also exists (TG1467), though it is currently listed as by an unknown artist. If anything, the watercolour is even closer to another British scene copied by Girtin from Cozens, a view of London from Greenwich Hill (TG0862), which includes a similar foreground and organises the middle ground in much the same way. If that work is by Girtin, about which there is some doubt, it was almost certainly copied at the home of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833), where Girtin, together with Turner, realised watercolour versions of numerous compositions by Cozens. Almost without exception, they follow the Cozens source very closely, whilst here, though Girtin has organised the landscape on the same principles, the view is sufficiently different to suggest that like another view of Windsor Castle and the Great Park (TG1369), it was produced from the artist’s own on-the-spot sketch. Though this is far from clear-cut, the conclusion is supported by the existence of another Windsor view, an outline drawing of the castle from the Thames (TG0182), which can plausibly be associated with a visit to the town around 1797–98.
Figure 1.
Paul Sandby (c.1730–1809), Windsor from Snow Hill in the Great Park, (?) 1800, bodycolour on paper, 36.8 × 96.5 cm, 14 ½ × 38 in. Bolton Museum (1963.P.13).
Digital image courtesy of Bolton Council (All Rights Reserved).
The difficulty in establishing the status of both of the distant views of Windsor from the south west, either as copies or as original compositions, stems not simply from the fact that they resemble the work of other artists but also from the fact that they depart from the principle that when Girtin depicted a popular subject, he generally sought out a different angle or viewpoint. In this case it seems that since this particular view continued to sell, the artist was content to bring nothing new to the subject. Thus, 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, reflect well on a wise and benevolent monarch who, as in so many views of the Great Park, is the embodiment of the model landowner in the ultimate country estate.
Another work with the same title and measuring 11 ½ × 17 in (29.2 × 43.2 cm) was last recorded as being in the collection of James Heelis (unknown dates) at the end of the nineteenth century (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, p.211).
1795 - 1800
Windsor Castle, Viewed from the South West
TG1467
1792 - 1793
Windsor Castle: The Norman Gateway and the Round Tower, with Part of the Queen’s Lodge
TG0157
1795 - 1800
Windsor Castle, Viewed from the South West
TG1467
1795 - 1796
London, from Greenwich Hill
TG0862
1797 - 1798
Windsor Castle and the Great Park, from the South West
TG1369
1797 - 1798
Windsor Castle, from the River Thames
TG0182