June 1830

‘A Gossip about Arts and Artists’, Fraser’s Magazine, vol.1 (June), p.535

These gentlemen were members of the original confederation of water-colour painters. But none of that confederation were actually originators of the existing art. Sandby, Rooker, Hearne, and Cozens, preceded them; the last of whom must be considered as the first who ventured upon those broad effects in water-colour, which Turner and Girtin afterwards carried to perfection. What Girtin would have produced had he lived, can, of course, be but matter of speculation; but his drawings were decidedly grander than those even of Turner at the same period; and his effects have never, to this moment, been surpassed by any artist in the same line. The man who comes-nearest to him in this respect is Dewint, and who, on the whole, must be allowed to be a more perfect artist.

26 July 1830

A letter sent by Anthony Vandyke Copley Fielding (1787–1855) to John Constable (1776–1837) was published in 1975 (Parris, Shields and Fleming-Williams, 1975, p.216)

My dear Sir

I have the pleasure to send you the Girtin, which I have just discovered, put carefully by, & am very sorry that you have not had it sooner, but concluding that it had been left at Brighton my search was less strict ... Copley Fielding

A manuscript note on the letter identified by the editors of Constable's correspondence as by Hugh Golding Constable notes that 'The Girtin refered to, I sold at Christie's 1891. It is now in Dublin "Saint Asaph's"'. This is not correct, however, as the Dublin version of Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge (TG1659 figure 1), then identified as St Asaph Cathedral in North Wales, was donated to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1872 and it is likely to have been the much superior autograph work now at the Yale Center for British Art (TG1659) that Fielding supplied to Constable and which appeared in a sale in 1892 (Exhibitions: Christie's, 17 June 1892, lot 269).

1800

Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge

TG1659

1800

Ripon Minster, with Skellgate Bridge

TG1659