- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- A Crag on the River Nidd
- Date
- 1799 - 1800
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
- Dimensions
- 11.2 × 16.7 cm, 4 ⅜ × 6 ⅝ in
- Part of
- Object Type
- Colour Sketch: Studio Work; Replica by Girtin
- Subject Terms
- River Scenery; Yorkshire View
-
- Collection
- Versions
-
A Crag on the River Nidd
(TG1611)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1510
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 370i as 'Grimbald Crag ... 1800 or 1801.'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and 2018
Provenance
Chambers Hall (1786–1855); presented to the Museum, 1855
Bibliography
Binyon, 1898–1907, no.16b as 'Near Knaresborough'; Hill, 1999, p.44
Place depicted
Revisions & Feedback
The website will be updated from time to time and, when changes are made, a PDF of the previous version of each page will be archived here for consultation and citation.
Please help us to improve this catalogue
If you have information, a correction or any other suggestions to improve this catalogue, please contact us.
About this Work
This view of a crag on the river Nidd, which David Hill has suggested may be between Abbey Mill and Grimbald Bridge, is one of seven views that Girtin sketched on a short stretch of the river near to Knaresborough, probably on his visit to Yorkshire in the summer of either 1799 or 1800 (the others being TG1509, TG1511, TG1512, TG1539, TG1542 and TG1589) (Hill, 1999, p.44). Each of the drawings was executed on a piece of wove paper of the same vertical dimensions, and there is some evidence that they were removed from a sketchbook. Two other drawings on the same paper have matching holes, which suggests that they had been bound into a book (TG1508a and TG1525). The latter sketch (Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea) is missing a small section, which, as a later copy indicates (TG1601), must have strayed onto the opposite page. It seems that on just this one occasion Girtin did execute his sketches in a book, though, as the paper historian Peter Bower has argued, it is unlikely that this was made commercially, and it may be that the artist himself assembled sheets of paper into a convenient gathering which would account for slight variations in their size (Bower, 2002, p.141).
One of the views on the river Nidd (TG1589) was used as the basis for a finished watercolour (TG1550), and a fine view titled The Abbey Mill, near Knaresborough (TG1672) was also based on what appears to have been another, lost sketch from 1799, which is today known from a copy in the Whitworth Book of Drawings (TG1607). The same book (TG1323, TG1324 and TG1600–TG1625) also contains a replica of this view on the river Nidd (TG1611). Slightly larger in scale, it must have been copied freehand by Girtin rather than traced, as was the case with the replica of Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond (TG1508). The likeliest scenario is that, as in the case of the Middleham sketch, Girtin found a purchaser for his on-the-spot drawing and that, prior to parting with it, he produced a replica that could be shown to potential clients and used as the basis for commissions similar to Abbey Mill. The elevated bank shown here, which has been described as Grimbald Crag, a yellow sandstone outcrop opposite the mill, may in fact show St Robert’s Cave, a subject that appears to have been too obscure to attract a commission (Hill, 1999, p.44). However, even if the sketch was never realised as a watercolour, the basic composition was repeated in two near contemporary commissions for Edward Lascelles (1764–1814), On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey (TG1554) and Plumpton Rocks, near Knaresborough (TG1553). It was probably during Girtin’s stay at Lascelles’ seat at nearby Harewood House that the scenes on the Nidd were sketched.
The colouring in this version of Grimbald Crag is so crude that at one time I seriously considered the possibility that it was added later by another hand. The artist’s brother, John Girtin (1773–1821), had access to the ‘180 Sketches’ and ‘4 little Books partly of Sketches’ left behind in Girtin’s studio at his death, and it is not impossible that it was he who added the colour to make the work more saleable (Smith, 2017–18, p.36). However, the same argument can be made in favour of Girtin’s authorship, and I now suspect that the colouring, including the skyscape, was added in the studio to an on-the-spot outline drawing to create the effect of a sketch worked from nature, something that might have an extra appeal to supportive collectors of his work.
On a technical note, Peter Bower has identified the support used by Girtin as white wove paper made by an unknown manufacturer whose products were untypical of contemporary English papers (Bower, Report). The artist used the same support for his on-the-spot colour sketch of Gordale Scar (TG1630) as well as for a number of others in the Whitworth Book of Drawings, including two that were detached from the collection, Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe (TG1613) and Mulgrave Park and Castle (TG1626).
1799 - 1800
Grimbald Bridge, near Knaresborough
TG1509
1799 - 1800
Knaresborough Castle, from the High Bridge
TG1511
1799 - 1800
Bilton Banks, on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough
TG1512
1799 - 1800
Knaresborough, from the North West
TG1539
1799 - 1800
Knaresborough, Looking across Bilton Banks
TG1542
1799 - 1800
Buildings on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough
TG1589
1799 - 1800
Cottages at Hawes, from Gayle Beck
TG1508a
1799 - 1800
Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea
TG1525
(?) 1801
Chelsea Reach, Looking towards Battersea
TG1601
1799 - 1800
Buildings on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough
TG1589
1800
Buildings on the River Nidd, near Knaresborough
TG1550
1800 - 1801
The Abbey Mill, near Knaresborough
TG1672
(?) 1800
The Abbey Mill, near Knaresborough
TG1607
1800 - 1801
Mountain Scenery, Said to Be near Beddgelert
TG1323
1800 - 1801
The Valley of the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
TG1324
1798 - 1799
John Raphael Smith: ‘Waiting for the Mail Coach’
TG1600
(?) 1800
The Ruins of Old Mulgrave Castle
TG1625
(?) 1800
A Crag on the River Nidd
TG1611
1799
Middleham Village, with the Castle Beyond
TG1508
1800 - 1801
On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey
TG1554
1800 - 1801
Plumpton Rocks, near Knaresborough
TG1553
(?) 1800
Gordale Scar Waterfall
TG1630
(?) 1800
Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe
TG1613
(?) 1800
Mulgrave Park and Castle, from near Epsyke Farm
TG1626