For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.
Works (?) Thomas Girtin and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) John Henderson

A Fisherman's Cottage, Said to Be at Dover

1795 - 1796

Primary Image: TG0830: (?) Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after (?) John Henderson (1764–1843), A Fisherman's Cottage, Said to Be at Dover, 1795–96, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, 13.3 × 20 cm, 5 ¼ × 7 ⅞ in. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1975.4.747).

Photo courtesy of Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (Public Domain)

Description
Creator(s)
(?) Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) John Henderson (1764-1843)
Title
  • A Fisherman's Cottage, Said to Be at Dover
Date
1795 - 1796
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
13.3 × 20 cm, 5 ¼ × 7 ⅞ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy; Work after an Amateur Artist
Subject Terms
Coasts and Shipping; Dover and Kent

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0830
Description Source(s)
Gallery Website

Provenance

George Guy Greville, 4th Earl of Warwick (1818–93) (his collector's mark, Lugt no.2600); Walker's Galleries, London; P & D Colnaghi & Co., 1962; bought from them by Paul Mellon (1907–99), 1970; presented to the Center, 1975

Exhibition History

Walker’s Galleries, 1951, no.112 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner; Walker’s Galleries, 1954, no.135 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner; Walker’s Galleries, 1962, no.138 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Bibliography

YCBA Online as 'Fisherman's Cottage, Dover' by Joseph Mallord William Turner (Accessed 12/09/2022)

About this Work

This view of fishing boats drawn up on a beach is currently attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), but, given its purported subject matter, it is a candidate for identification as one of the hundred or so Dover views that were sold from the collection of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) at his posthumous sale in 1833, many of which have subsequently been established as collaborations with Girtin (Exhibitions: Christie’s, 26 June 1833; Christie’s, 1 July 1833). Similar views by the two artists, such as Dover: Beached Boats, with the Castle Beyond (TG1471), were copied from drawings by the amateur artist John Henderson (1764–1843), who lent Monro his ‘outlines of Shipping & Boats’, described by the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) as ‘Very ingenious & careful’, ‘for this purpose’ (Farington, Diary, 1 December 1795; Farington, Diary, 30 December 1794). That said, there are serious concerns about both the status of the work and its subject. The fact that its source work has not been traced is, in itself, not important, but there is no evidence, in the form of comparative images, that it depicts a scene at Dover. Moreover, it does not automatically follow that what purports to be a Monro School copy was authored by Girtin and Turner. In the first instance, there is no clearly evident pencil work against which to test Girtin’s contribution to what, in the case of the marine views of Dover and its shipping, is always a significant part of the production process. And then there is the poor quality of the colouring of the work, which fails to match the best of the Monro School subjects, such as Vessels Anchored in Dover Harbour (TG0813), where a subtle and sparing application of washes of carefully modulated tones of blue and grey is woven amongst Girtin’s pencil work. Here the sky is formulaic, the water is conventional, and without any discernible aerial perspective there is no sense of credible recession. I suspect, therefore, that if this work does depict a south-coast scene from the collection of Monro, that it was the work of one of the many artists, amateur and professional, who worked at the patron’s home and that Girtin and Turner were not directly involved in its production other than possibly being the model for the anonymous copyist.

1795 - 1796

Dover: Beached Boats, with the Castle Beyond

TG1471

1795 - 1796

Vessels Anchored in Dover Harbour, with the Castle Beyond

TG0813

by Greg Smith

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.