This is one of three landscapes that Girtin produced in the first month of his stay in Paris from etchings by the seventeenth-century Dutch landscape artist Herman van Swanevelt (1603–55) (the others being TG1913 and TG1915). Girtin arrived in the French capital at the end of November 1801 and presumably acquired the etchings almost immediately, as he inscribed each of the watercolours ‘Girtin Paris 1801’. Why Girtin chose to mark his arrival in France by copying etchings of imaginary classical landscapes is far from clear, though he had by this date probably already made a number of copies after prints by earlier artists, such as Marco Ricci (1676–1730) (including TG1916). Girtin had travelled to France with his London panorama, hoping to put it on display, and it may be that with no other plans in mind – the idea for a set of prints of Paris views came later – he turned to a secondary source for inspiration, having been disappointed by the potential of French scenery as a subject. As he later noted in a conversation with Thomas Holcroft (1745–1809), the ‘landscapes of France’ were ‘spotty, naked, having no hedges and trees … with few grand masses, ragged broken lines, little verdure, and a prevailing grey tone’ – altogether unsuited to an artist like Girtin, in other words (Holcroft, 1804, vol.2, p.492).¹

Swanevelt’s etching House on a Rock (see the source image above) provided everything the landscape of northern France lacked, though Girtin still set about simplifying the composition. The watercolour, which conforms to one of the standard sizes of his late works, roughly 30.5 × 53.3 cm (12 × 21 in), is larger than the print, which measures 19 × 27.6 cm (7 ½ × 10 ⅞ in), but the artist reduced the number of figures and opened up the landscape, creating a lighter and more picturesque scene in consequence. More particularly, he greatly expanded the extent of the river in the foreground, and made it meander into the distance. As Girtin again noted to Holcroft, ‘water was wanting’ too often in the scenery of France, and, given that this was ‘to him an almost insuperable defect’, he presumably felt no compunction in transforming Swanevelt’s mean stream into something that might properly ‘form a picture’ (Holcroft, 1804, vol.2, p.498). Compared to the other bright and freshly coloured watercolours produced after Swanevelt’s etchings, this altogether more sombre image has faded somewhat, with the loss of some of the blues, whilst the foliage of the central tree has changed to yellow. 

1801

A Wooded River in an Extensive Landscape

TG1913

1801

A Wooded Landscape, with a Hermit

TG1915

1800 - 1801

An Italianate Landscape with Two Monks

TG1916