- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) after John Frederick Miller (1759-1796)
- Title
-
- An Icelandic Woman in Her Riding Dress
- Date
- 1790
- Medium and Support
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- 53 × 36.5 cm, 20 ⅞ × 14 ⅜ in
- Inscription
‘an Iceland Woman in her riding Dress copied by Thomas Gurton in 1790. from a Drawing by J Cleverley Jun. 1772’ on the original ruled mount
- Object Type
- Work from a Known Source: Contemporary British
-
- Collection
-
- National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik
- (Stnl-33)
- Catalogue Number
- TG0001
- Description Source(s)
- Auction Catalogue
Provenance
John Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley of Alderly (1766–1850); then by descent to Suzanne Beadle; her sale, Christie’s, 15 June 1982, lot 19iii; bought by the Icelandic Government
Other entries in Master and Pupil:
Edward Dayes and the Industrious Apprentice
An Icelandic Woman in Her Riding Dress
National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik
An Icelandic Woman with Her Young Daughter
National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik
The Great Geysir, Iceland, as It Appeared during Its Eruption to Sir Joseph Banks in September 1772
Private Collection
Mount Hekla, with Sir Joseph Banks and His Party Descending from the Volcano
Private Collection
Lava as It Has Run Over the Ridge of a Hill, Iceland
Private Collection
The House of Thorstein Jonsson at Hvaleyri, Iceland
National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik
A Section of the 'Boiling Fountains' (Geysers) and the Surrounding Country, Iceland
Private Collection
The Basalt Pillars near Laugarnes, Iceland
Private Collection
An Icelandic Woman in Her Bridal Dress
National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik
Durham Cathedral, from the River Wear
The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Eton College, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
London: Interior of St Stephen Walbrook, Looking East
Private Collection
Rochester, from the River Medway
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Mary’s Church, Battersea
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
Unidentified Coastal Village, Said to Be Clovelly
Private Collection
The Monument to Anthony and Anne Forster, Cumnor Church
Private Collection
The Interior of Buildwas Abbey Church
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Somerset House: The Strand Front and the Royal Academy
Untraced Works
An Exterior View of Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Westminster Bridge, from the North East
Untraced Works
The Oxford Street Facade of the Pantheon
Untraced Works
The Interior of Westminster Abbey: The Nave Looking East
Untraced Works
The Queen’s Palace, or Buckingham House
Royal Collection Trust (Windsor)
The King’s Mews, Charing Cross
London Metropolitan Archives
The East Front of St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Untraced Works
The Banqueting House, Whitehall
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Interior of St Paul’s Cathedral: The Nave Looking East
Untraced Works
St Paul’s Cathedral, from the South West
Untraced Works
The West Front of St Paul’s Cathedral
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The West Front of Westminster Abbey
Untraced Works
Interior of St Stephen Walbrook, Looking East
Untraced Works
A French Lady of Quality in 1581
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Edward VI in 1550
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Noble Virgin of Bologna in 1581
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Persian Lady in 1568
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
An English Nobleman in 1559
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Henry VIII in 1520
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Marlow, from across the River Thames
Private Collection
Tynemouth Priory, from the Coast
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
The River Wensum at Norwich
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Rochester Castle, from the River Medway
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Tintern Abbey, from the River Wye
Courtauld Gallery, London
All Saints' Church, Fulham, from the Seven Bells, Putney
Private Collection
London from Highgate Hill
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
'First Regiment of Foot Guards, 1660': Officer and Subaltern
British Museum, London
'First Regiment of Foot Guards, 1660': Sergeant and Private
British Museum, London
First Regiment of Foot Guards, 1660: Drummer and Private
Brown University Library, Providence, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection
'Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, 1650': Officer and Sergeant
British Museum, London
'Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, 1650': Sergeant and Private
British Museum, London
Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, 1650: Drummer and Corporal
Brown University Library, Providence, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection
'Third Regiment of Foot Guards, 1660': Officer and Sergeant
British Museum, London
'Third Regiment of Foot Guards, 1660': Grenadier and Private
British Museum, London
Third Regiment of Foot Guards, 1660: Drummer and Private
Brown University Library, Providence, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection
Christ Church, Southwark
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Llanthony Priory
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Rochester, from the North
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
The View from the Great Boathouse, Lake Windermere
Private Collection
Westminster Abbey and Bridge, from Lambeth
Private Collection
The Dover Mail, Dover Castle in the Distance
Private Collection
Rochester Cathedral and Castle, from the North East
Eton College, Windsor
Worcester, from the River Severn
Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
Lake Windermere and Belle Isle
Wordsworth Grasmere (Dove Cottage and Wordsworth Museum)
London Bridge, from the South Bank
Private Collection
The Demolition of a Building, Said to Be Part of the Ruins of Old Drury Lane Theatre
Private Collection
Dover Castle: The Constable's Tower
Untraced Works
A Cottage on the Solent
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Hereford Cathedral, from the River Wye
Hereford Museum and Art Gallery
Chepstow Castle, on the River Wye
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Warehouse and Shipping at Wapping
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery
A Distant View of Hereford Cathedral
Private Collection
The Gatehouse and Barbican, Warwick Castle
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Chepstow Castle, from the River Wye
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Interior of a Ruined Abbey Church
Private Collection
The Head of Ullswater, from Goborrow Park
Private Collection
Part of the Ruins of Roche Abbey
Private Collection
The Transept of St Saviour’s, Southwark
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Part of the Ruins of the Savoy Palace, Westminster Bridge Beyond
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Durham Cathedral, from the River Wear
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
All Saints' Church, Marlow
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
Caesar’s Tower, Warwick Castle
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Interior View of the Ruins of the Savoy Hospital
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A Bronze Age Palstave and a Roman Bow Brooch
Society of Antiquaries of London
All Saints' Church, Marlow
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Unidentified Monastic Ruins next to a River
Private Collection
Westminster, from the Ruins of the Savoy
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
Manchester: Chetham’s College from Hunt’s Bank, with the Bridge over the River Irwell
Untraced Works
Part of the Ruins of the Savoy Palace, Westminster Bridge Beyond
Private Collection
The Oriel Window of the Great Hall of Eltham Palace
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
An Exterior View of Part of the Ruins of the Savoy Hospital
Private Collection
A Distant View of Marlow, from the River Thames
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
A Distant View of Marlow, from the River Thames
Private Collection
An Interior View of the Ruins of the Savoy Hospital
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Part of the Ruins of the Savoy Palace, Westminster Bridge Beyond
Private Collection
Buildings in the Process of Demolition, Said to Be the Ruins of the Savoy Palace
Tate, London
An Exterior View of Part of the Ruins of the Savoy Hospital
Tate, London
An Interior View of the Ruins of the Savoy Hospital
Tate, London
St Mary’s Church, Monken Hadley
Tate, London
An Exterior View of the Great Hall of Eltham Palace
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Interior of the Great Hall of Eltham Palace
Private Collection
The Interior of the Great Hall of Eltham Palace
Private Collection
The Interior of the Great Hall of Eltham Palace
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
St Mary's Church, Putney High Street
Private Collection
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About this Work
This watercolour, one of Girtin’s earliest signed and dated works, was produced for John Thomas Stanley (1766–1850). Stanley travelled to Iceland in the summer of 1789, following in the footsteps of his friend the famous botanist Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820), who had made the journey in 1772. On his return Stanley commissioned Philip Reinagle (1749–1833), Nicholas Pocock (1740–1821) and Girtin’s master at the time, Edward Dayes (1763–1804), to work up many of his sketches into finished watercolours as records of his trip. In 1790 Stanley also employed the fifteen-year-old Girtin, then in the second year of his apprenticeship to Dayes, to make copies of some of the watercolours that Banks had commissioned following his 1772 trip to Iceland, though the fee from the artist’s first professional engagement would have gone to his master. In all Girtin made nine watercolours based on an earlier set of drawings made for Banks by John Frederick Miller (1759–96), James Miller (active 1773–1814) and John Cleveley the Younger (1747–86). Having failed to publish them as engravings, Banks had them mounted as a souvenir of his northern journey. The four volumes, titled Drawings Illustrative of Sir Joseph Banks’s Voyage to the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Iceland, are today kept in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Library (Add Mss 15509–12). Girtin’s first dated works, which were sold by a descendant of Stanley in 1982, therefore depict a country that he did not visit and were careful copies of watercolours made by professionals from sketches they had executed in the field twenty years earlier.
The inscription on the original mount, presumably by Stanley, notes that the watercolour was ‘copied … after a drawing’ by Cleveley made in 1772, but this is incorrect on two counts. The original watercolour (see the source image above) was actually executed by John Frederick Miller and the copyist, termed ‘Gurton’, must have been the fifteen-year-old apprentice of Dayes, Thomas Girtin. It is one of three costume studies that Girtin copied for Stanley from drawings taken on Banks’ expedition and the others (TG0002 and TG0010) also feature high-status women. They were perhaps selected by the patron so as not to pose too great a challenge for the young artist, but Stanley, like many early visitors to Iceland, was also genuinely fascinated by the unusual costumes worn by the women in particular. They rode on a side saddle with a back support and wore a dark hat to protect their elaborate headdress. The high social status of the woman shown in Girtin’s copy is clear from a comparison with one of the views that Stanley commissioned from Dayes, which shows an idealised version of his visit to a farmhouse between Hekla and Skálholt (see figure 1). The women show off the distinctive Icelandic headdress to the admiring Stanley, but their clothes in general are simple versions of the ornate costumes worn in Girtin’s watercolours (TG0001 and TG0010).
A woman in the same, or similar, riding costume with its distinctive black hat appears in the foreground of The House of Thorstein Jonsson at Hvaleyri (TG0007), and it is possible that both figures represent Sigríður Magnúsdóttir (1734–1807), the wife of the deputy governor Ólafur Stephensen (1731–1812), who entertained both Banks and Stanley on their trips. Magnúsdóttir was certainly the model for the woman in her bridal gown (TG0010), and it may be that the riding costume is shown in use in The House of Thorstein Jonsson.
1790
An Icelandic Woman with Her Young Daughter
TG0002
(?) 1790
An Icelandic Woman in Her Bridal Dress
TG0010
1790
An Icelandic Woman in Her Riding Dress
TG0001
(?) 1790
An Icelandic Woman in Her Bridal Dress
TG0010
(?) 1790
The House of Thorstein Jonsson at Hvaleyri, Iceland
TG0007
(?) 1790
An Icelandic Woman in Her Bridal Dress
TG0010